Visiting Assistant Professor, Hispanic Studies
Lauris McQuoid-Greason is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Hispanic Studies at the University of Puget Sound. She completed her doctoral studies at Washington University in St. Louis in Hispanic Studies, and taught previously for several years at both Washington University and Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on contemporary Latin American cultural and literary studies, with a particular emphasis on Mexico, and on the intersections between aesthetics and neoliberalization—or the widespread shift in the last fifty years towards greater privatization and interrelated cultural transformations. Her dissertation, titled “Social Structures: Social Practices and Cultural Infrastructure in Mexican Aesthetics (2000-2020),” centered on the use of social and collaborative practices in interdisciplinary cases of literature and art in 21st century Mexico, and the way such practices have negotiated concerns around transformations in cultural infrastructure. As the project demonstrates, these recent cases of art and literature question the idea that aesthetics operate independently from the processes and infrastructures that support them, including such factors as funding structures for the arts and culture, or economic and cultural policy.
Lauris has presented at conferences on the work of such authors as Mario Levrero, Lina Meruane, Mariana Enríquez, and Vivian Abenshushan. Previous to her doctoral studies, Lauris completed a B.A. in Romance Languages (Spanish and French) at the University of Maryland, College Park, and an M.A. in Multilingual Studies (Spanish and French) at Virginia Tech. She has 5+ years of teaching experience, at both Washington University and Virginia Tech, in introductory and intermediate Spanish and French language and culture.
In her off time, she loves spending time in nature, hiking, backpacking, travelling, reading, and interacting with weird art.