About

Pronouns: he/him

Background:

Juan “Ricky” Araiza (he/him), a Las Cruces resident since 2014, received his Bachelor’s degree in Literature, Language, and Culture w/ Minor in Creative Writing from New Mexico State University in 2018 then his Master’s degree in Literature w/ Minor in Gender & Sexuality Studies during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. 

As a professor at New Mexico State University, his courses and curriculums are structured around the study and development of writing, rhetoric, and composition. Through the use of genre study as well as interdisciplinary practices and frameworks, his teaching aims to help students build upon and affirm their unique, personal knowledgebases while simultaneously developing their skills as academics and scholars capable of deep, critical thinking, analysis, and knowledge production.

Courses Taught: 

• Rhetoric and Composition 
• Introduction to Literature 
• Introduction to Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies
• Representing Women Across Cultures
• Graphic Narratives: Comics as Literature 
• Intersectionality & Horror
• Imagined Possibilities: Science Fiction, Society, & the Self 
• Film as Literature 
• Masculinities Studies 

Teaching Interests

• Critical Queer, Race, & Feminist Theory and Literature  
• Global Feminism, Film, & Cinema Studies
• Intersectionality and Speculative Fiction Genre Studies & Theory (Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror) 
• Literary, Creative, and Critical Studies as Rhetoric, Composition, & Writing 

Key Research Topics: 

• Comics as Cultural Literary Mediums & Pedagogical Tools for Rhetoric and Composition 
• Storytelling as Personal & Social Tools of Expression, Creativity, and Reflection 
• The Academic Analysis & Discussion of Pulp and Speculative Fiction 
• Speculative Fiction and the Literary Imagination of Western Hegemony 

Creative Interests and/or Community Engagement & Advocacy: 

• Queer, Fat, and Latinx Representation, Theory, & Aesthetics in the Arts, Social Sciences, & Humanities 
• Comics and Zines as Visual Tools of Resistance, Advocacy, & Awareness 
• “Queerative” Praxis and Methods of Learning, Creating, & Building Community 
• Videogames as Literature and Other Narrative Technologies 
• Surrealism & Magical Realism as Language, Experience, and Memoir 

Selected Project: Ventanas – Made for and by horror fans looking to center marginalized voices (PDF)

As an editor, I helped curate, organize, publish, and promote Ventanas, a 2018 digital/web zine publication put together by students from NMSU’s Main Campus English Department’s Online Publication course. Ventanas, Spanish for “windows,” is made by horror fans for horror fans looking to center marginalize voices, authors, narratives, perspectives, and imaginations through various creative forms of expressions both academic and artistic. It is a southwestern publication made up of horror fans looking to legitimize the genre as a “window” that allows us to view, express, and reflect upon our societal fears and anxieties. We want to push the boundaries of what is considered “horrific” and “truly” scary within our current world and rescue the horror genre from its mainstream conditions of whiteness and heterosexuality/normativity so that it can be pulled apart to expose the tensions with that often go ignored. That being said, issues/topics that we are particularly interested in exploring are (but not limited to) race, gender, sex/sexuality, class, identity, civil/human rights, otherness, and many more.