Claudia Sofia Garriga-Lopez
Claudia Sofía Garriga-López is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ethnic, Gender, and Queer Studies. She holds a PhD in American Studies from New York University’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis. A scholar of trans, queer, feminist, and Latinx social movements across the Américas, her work examines the intersections of gender and sexuality with state governance, public health, environmental justice, and community resilience. She is currently revising her book manuscript Gender for All: Transfeminism in Ecuador, which analyzes twenty years of transfeminist activism, policy interventions, cultural production, and legal reform in Ecuador.
Garriga-López’s teaching and research are deeply intertwined. Her courses center collaborative learning, community building, and hemispheric approaches to queer and trans studies, integrating ethnographic research, oral history, visual culture, literature, and social science methods. Drawing on her extensive work with feminist, queer, and trans activist movements in Ecuador, Puerto Rico, and the United States, she brings a grounded, interdisciplinary, and justice-centered approach to the classroom. Her commitment to inclusive pedagogy includes a “no questions asked” two-week extension policy, attention to diverse learning styles, and a strong emphasis on mentoring first-generation, undocumented, transfer, disabled, and LGBTQ+ students. Many of the courses she developed—such as “Sex Work, Queer Desire, and Transfeminism,” “Coloring Queer: Imagining Community,” and “Latinx Genders and Sexualities”—were instrumental in launching the majors in Intersectional Latinx Studies (2019) and Queer and Trans Studies (2021).
Her scholarly profile is marked by a sustained engagement with community-based research, disaster studies, and the arts. In 2023, Garriga-López completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the Just Futures Initiative: Race, Risk, and Resilience at Florida International University, a Mellon Foundation–funded project that analyzed the environmental and infrastructural conditions shaping disaster vulnerability and community resilience in Miami-Dade County. In 2024, she completed a year-long residency with the Arts Research in Communities of Color Fellowship, funded by the Social Science Research Council and the Wallace Foundation, in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico (MAC-PR). This interdisciplinary ethnographic work examines how community arts initiatives function as strategies of survival, resistance, and resilience following hurricanes, economic precarity, and other forms of structural abandonment.
Garriga-López has presented her research widely at national and international conferences, including the American Studies Association (ASA), the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), and the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA). She currently serves on the Advisory Board of Women’s Studies Quarterly (WSQ) and the Editorial Board of Transgender Studies Quarterly (TSQ)—two of the most influential journals in feminist and trans studies.
Courses taught
· CHLX 203 Latinx Film: Representation, Resistance, and Disruption
- CHLX 410 Latinx Gender and Sexualities
- CHLX 420 Latina and Chicana Power
· MCGS 155 Introduction to Intersectional Ethnic Studies
· MCGS 300H/HNRS 300 Honors Ethnic Studies Methodologies
· MCGS 480 Sex Work, Queer Desire, and Transfeminism
· MCGS 495 Senior Seminar in Race, Gender, and Queer Studies
- QTST 310 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Issues and Identities
- QTST 370 Coloring Queer
Publications
Garriga-López, C.S. (2024). “Transfeminist Latinx America.” Transgender Studies Quarterly
10(4).
Garriga-López, C.S. (2024). “Femicide and Transfeminist Justice.” In Confronting Femicide:
Multidisciplinary Perspectives from Puerto Rico and Beyond, Palgrave Press.
Garriga-López, C.S. (2024). “Transfeminist Political Economy.” In Bite Back! Queer
Solidarities: Queer Feminisms, Class, and the Quest for New Alliances. Edition Assemblage
Press.
Garriga-López, C.S. (2023). Transfeminisms.” Sinister Wisdom 128
Garriga-López, C.S. (2023). “Raining Feminism.” Sinister Wisdom.
Garriga-López, C.S. (2021). “Praxes of Care: The Politics of ‘Intravention’ in the Age of
COVID-19.” Items, Social Science Research Council.
Garriga-López, C.S., eds. (2019). Co-editor, “Trans Studies en las Américas.” Transgender
Studies Quarterly 6(2)
Garriga-López, C.S. (2018). “Illustrations: “Gloria’s Tree” and “La Aparición.” In Latinas: Struggles & Protests in 21st Century USA, edited by Iris Morales.
Garriga-López, C.S. (2017). “Hurricane Maria Exposes Puerto Rico’s Stark Environmental and
Health Inequalities.” Items, SSRC.
Garriga-López, C.S. (2016). “Transfeminist Crossroads: Reimagining the Ecuadorian State.”
Transgender Studies Quarterly 3(1-2), 104–119.
Manuscripts in Progress
- Gender For All: Transfeminism in Ecuador. Under review with Duke University Press.