Speculative Play and Just Futurities | Dr. Renee Hudson

Dr. Renee Hudson, scholar-in-residence in the Speculative Play and Just Futurities program, will lead a conversation featuring her SPJF project: “Hegemonic Citizenship” in Latinx Girlhood and the Problem of Citizenship.

Renee Hudson (she/her/ella) is an Assistant Professor and Director of Latinx & Latin American Studies at Chapman University. She specializes in hemispheric studies, multiethnic literature, speculative fiction, genre studies, and histories of revolution and resistance. 

She has published in Modern Fiction Studies, CR: The New Centennial Review, and has forthcoming pieces in The Cambridge Companion on Race and Literature and Latinx Literature in Transition Vol. 2, also with Cambridge. She edited a cluster on Latinx speculative fiction for ASAP/J, and her book reviews can be found in the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Brooklyn Rail, MELUS, and ASAP/J.

Her first book, Latinx Revolutionary Horizons: Form and Futurity in the Americas, from Fordham University Press (2024) examines how contemporary Latinx literature illustrates the hemispheric convergence of Latin American independence movements and the long history of US occupations and interventions.

While many foundational texts of Latinx literature focus on boys, Dr. Renee Hudson’s forthcoming book, Latinx Girlhood and the Problem of Citizenship suggests centering the lives of girls offers quite different ways of apprehending Latinidad. Focusing on Latinx girls across a wide range of cultural productions underscores how issues of gender and sexuality undergird broader discourses surrounding citizenship and democracy.

During her August SPJF residency, Dr. Renee Hudson will concentrate on a chapter of her book, Latinx Girlhood and the Problem of Citizenship. In “Hegemonic Citizenship”, Dr. Hudson examines the first girl to appear in Latinx literature: María Dolores Medina (Lola) in María Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s Who Would Have Thought It? (1872, republished in 1995).

This character sets the stage for the problems of citizenship that Dr. Hudson argues governs Latinx girlhood, particularly in terms of nationality and assimilation: the Latinx possessive investment in whiteness that attends the disavowal of both Black and Indigenous heritage. Dr. Hudson will also address how young adult fiction is not inherently progressive.

The Speculative Play and Just Futurities program leverages narrative storytelling and creative world-building in speculative writing and design, including science fiction, fantasy, gaming, and new digital media like virtual reality, to challenge oppression and reimagine our world. It focuses on creating forums for discussing and theorizing literature to envision just futures. Central to SPJF is a residency for emerging scholars and creators, fostering intellectual and creative growth. SPJF also hosts weekly colloquia for students and faculty, featuring resident interactions and collaborative learning opportunities.

Speculative Play and Just Futurities is made possible through the generous support of the Mellon Foundation. SPJF is a collaboration between the IU Indianapolis Arts and Humanities Institute, the Center for Africana Studies and Culture, and the Ray Bradbury Center. Learn more about the SPJF residency by visiting our website: https://www.spjf.org/.