The UCLA Department of Art History’s Professor Charlene Villaseñor Black was recently featured in UCLA Residential Life:
As one of a small handful of Chicana (Mexican-American) professors in art history in the US, my research and teaching are dedicated to questioning traditional forms of scholarship that invalidate the artistic contributions of my ancestors or my community. My background as a working-class Chicana from Arizona informs my work as Faculty-in-Residence, a professor, and in the classroom. As Faculty in Residence for 11 years, I’ve been able to celebrate Chicanx identity through programming like Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead. As a professor and in the classroom, I’ve been able to share my passion in decolonizing the study of art and support student success through teaching about Chicanx visual culture and colonial Mexican art. To decolonize is to rid our work and ourselves of Eurocentric biases and to posit another more optimistic world centered on social justice.
Dr. Charlene Villaseñor Black (she/her/ella)
Faculty-in-Residence
Professor, Department of Art History and Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies
