DIRECTORY LISTING

Biography

Melissa Castillo-Garsow

Dr. Melissa Castillo-Garsow is an Associate Professor of English at Lehman College specializing in Latinx Literature and Culture. She also holds an appointment at the CUNY Graduate Center Ph.d. Program in English.

Castillo-Garsow Munoz earned her Ph.D. in American studies and African-American studies from Yale University in 2017, and subsequently was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard.

She is the author of the poetry collection Coatlicue Eats the Apple, editor of the anthology, ¡Manteca!: An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets, co-editor of La Verdad: An International Dialogue on Hip Hop Latinidades and co-author of the novel, Pure Bronx. Her most recent scholarly book project, with Rutgers University Press’ new Global Race and Media series (March 2020), A Mexican State of Mind: New York City and the New Borderlands of Culture, examines the creative worlds and cultural productions of Mexican migrants in New York City and their contributions to graffiti and Hip-Hop culture in an environment that nevertheless marginalizes and exploits them.

Her second book of poetry, Chingona Rules was released with Finishing Line Press in September 2021 and was a Gold Medal Winner of the Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book Award, International Latino Book Awards (2022). Her co-edited volume, Scholars in COVID Times was released with Cornell University Press in September 2023.

At Lehman College, Melissa serves as Director of the English Honors Program, Faculty Advisor to Obscura, the Literary and Arts Magazine of Lehman College, a Senator of the CUNY Faculty Senate. She is also Co-Director of the Bronx Latino History Project, a joint project with the Bronx County Historical Society.

Her short stories, articles, poetry and essays have been published in numerous scholarly collections and media publications. She has given invited lectures and poetry readings all over the world including Jadavpur University (Kolkata, India), Seoul National University, UCLA and the University of Chicago. Prior to joining the faculty at Lehman College, Castillo-Garsow completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University's Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History where she taught courses in Latinx Cultural Studies and organized the first ever Latinx Poetry Reading and Workshop Series.

To learn more, visit her on the web at www.drmelissacastillogarsow.com