Jacqueline García Suárez

Jacqueline García Suárez is an assistant professor of Latin American and Iberian Cultures. Her research focuses on the role of literature and visual arts in either reproducing or disrupting cyclical patterns of violence in the Caribbean and its diasporas in the United States, with an emphasis on bodily representations of trauma and communal practices of resistance. She holds a B.A. in Spanish from Universidad de La Habana and a dual-title Ph.D. in Spanish and Visual Studies from The Pennsylvania State University.

Her current book project, tentatively entitled (Dis-)enrhythmed Caribbean Bodies: Undoing the Habituation to Violence in Cuba and Puerto Rico, comparatively examines 20th and 21st century visual and literary works produced in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and their communities in the United States. It underscores the function of rhythm in the normalization and depoliticization of suffering and precarity through the repetition of an oppressive repertoire of images, sounds, and rhetorical cues. This project picks up on a longstanding Caribbean tradition that has recognized the pervasive function of rhythm in subjugating colonized bodies to discuss different contemporary instances in which individuals strive to break free from the loop of historical debts, production cycles, militarism, and experiences of forced stasis and displacement. By focusing on the cases of Cuba and Puerto Rico, it exposes how colonialism, totalitarianism, and neoliberalism similarly enrhythm bodies to make them endure daily trauma and distress, despite the traditional consideration of both islands’ political systems as antagonistic Caribbean showcases of the Cold War.

García Suárez is also currently working on publications addressing the impact of the sensory-led aesthetics of artivist groups, such as the Colectiva Feminista en Construcción in Puerto Rico and the Movimiento San Isidro in Cuba, on the social protests that have shaken these regions in recent years.

In Cuba, she taught courses on Latin language and literature at Universidad de La Habana and worked at the Editorial de Ciencias Sociales and Editorial UH, where she was the editor of books such as El Caribe a los 50 años de la Revolución cubana (2011) and Páginas en conflicto: Debate racial en la prensa cubana (1912–1930) (2014), among many others.