Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies (CELAS)

Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies (CELAS)

Established in 2024, the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies (CELAS) at Rice University advances an innovative and capacious approach to area and ethnic studies: it is multi-racial, multi-lingual, hemispheric, transnational in scope, yet rooted in place. The Center pursues interdisciplinary research that illuminates the heterogeneity and interconnectedness of Latin American and Latine lives and cultures across the globe and tackles pressing issues affecting people and places, from Houston, Texas, the Gulf Coast region, and the US South to the Greater Caribbean, Latin America, the Americas, and other world regions. The Center advances this mission and agenda via research clusters, lecture series, colloquia, workshops, artist collaborations, and support for individual research projects by Rice students and faculty, thus facilitating and creating vibrant research and creative communities on and beyond campus. CELAS is led by a director, executive committee, and program administrator and has more than 30 faculty affiliates across schools (Humanities, Social Sciences, and Engineering).

CELAS Research Clusters

The Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies (CELAS) develops a range of activities and initiatives that work towards generating sustainable futures, building thriving urban communities, and advancing graduate education. While the Center supports all research related to Latin American and Latinx communities, its main research areas are currently focused on four research clusters: 

 

  • Representation and Democratic Resilience (led by Leslie Schwindt-Bayer and Guillermo Rosas, Political Science).  Democracy across the Americas faces mounting challenges, from dramatic ruptures like coup attempts to quieter erosion of democratic norms and institutions. This research cluster examines the quality, dynamics, and durability of democratic governance in Latin America, investigating both the threats that undermine representative democracy and the mechanisms that sustain it.    

 

  • Environment and Conflict (led by Azucena Castro and Sophie Esch, Literature and Culture).  Conflicts and challenges in relation to environmental change, destruction, and natural/human-made disasters are bound to increase across the Americas, triggering displacement and violent confrontations. This applies as much to Houston as it does to Central and South America. This cluster aims to bundle the scientific and creative insights of the humanities, social and natural sciences, engineering, and the arts to comprehend and visualize these complex issues.

 

  • Arts and the Urban Sphere (led by Ana Franco and Fabiola López-Durán, Art History).

Utilizing Rice’s unique position in Houston (a central hub for Latinx art in the Americas) this cluster focuses on the arts as a key factor for creating thriving urban communities and deepening networks with artists and art historians in Houston, Texas, and the Americas. The aim is to create spaces for critical reflection on what “thriving” means for communities across different cities and neighborhoods.

 

  • South-South Connections and Methodologies (led by Sophie Esch and Paula Park, Literature).  Despite long-standing criticism of the North Atlantic orientation of knowledge production, this profound imbalance continues to exist. This cluster proposes a methodological and epistemological intervention and reflection that centers South-South connections and comparisons and orients knowledge production towards, for example, the South Atlantic (Latin-America-Africa), the Pacific (Asia-Americas), and the US. South and Gulf Coast.

CELAS is also working on the creation of a graduate certificate in Latin American and Latinx Studies and organizing a wide range of activities about current political events in the region, the intersection of arts and environmental and social developments, and about history and memory across the Americas. Events take place at Rice and internationally (Colombia, Argentina, France). CELAS also furthers individual field research and projects by faculty and students across several disciplines (with field work taking places in Texas, Brazil, Colombia, Bermuda, Argentina, UK, Spain) and initiates collaborations with artists in the Houston area.

Source:  Sophie Esch, celas.rice.edu

Last updated:  March 2026