Urban Humanities Initiative Core Faculty
Ph.D Comparative Literature (Columbia University)
MPhil Comparative Literature (Columbia University)
MA Spanish (Columbia University)
BA & MA in German (Universidad Complutense)
Maite Zubiaurre started her career as a literary translator from novels in German into Spanish. She taught atUSC, ITAM, UNAM, and the University of Texas, Austin, and is presently a Professor in the Humanities at UCLA with expertise in the areas of gender and sexuality studies, urban studies, cultural studies, discard studies, and migration studies. She has authored groundbreaking works, among them Cultures of the Erotic in Spain 1898-1939 (2012), a scholarly volume tied to a comprehensive digital repository of early twentieth century erotica unique in its kind, and the award-winning monograph Talking Trash. Cultural Uses of Waste (2019). As a filmmaker, she is the director, writer, and producer, with Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, of Aguilas/Eagles (2021), a multi-awarded and Oscar-shortlisted short documentary on migrant death and rescue efforts at the Arizona desert. “Filomena Cruz” is Maite Zubiaurre’s alter ego as visual artist and author of the ongoing Venice LA street art intervention “The Wall that Gives/El muro que da.”