research overview
- Professor Soares' research agenda focuses on gender and sexuality in Latinx media, using an interdisciplinary approach that combines archival research, performance studies, literary analysis, and oral history. Professor Soares' book - Playful Protest: The Political Work of Joy in Latinx Media (University of Illinois Press, 2023) – defines joy as a politicized form of pleasure, one that not only produces gratification but also unsettles social norms of gender, sexuality, race, and class. The book examines Puerto Rican and Cuban diasporic media from 1960-present. It contends that when cultural producers insert joy into media texts—ranging from music, to public activist demonstrations, to sitcoms—they resist the dominant stories told about Latinx joy over centuries of colonialism and imperialism. Professor Soares is also currently working on an oral history project that explores the role of Latinx disc jockeys in the development of disco and dance music in 1970s New York. This is part of a larger book project entitled Macho Man: Performances of Latinidad in the Disco Era.
