About: 

David J. Vázquez is an award-winning writer, scholar, teacher, and public intellectual. He is currently Professor of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies at American University in Washington, DC. Dr. Vázquez is the author of Decolonial Environmentalisms: Climate Justice and Speculative Futurity in Latinx Cultural Production (Texas, 2025), a co-editor of Latinx Environmentalisms: Place, Justice, and the Decolonial (Temple, 2019), which won the 2022 Modern Language Association Prize for an Edited Volume, and the author of Triangulations: Narrative Strategies for Navigating Latino Identity (Minnesota, 2011). 

In addition to his book-length projects, Dr. Vázquez has published academic articles in journals such as Symbolism, American Literary History, Arizona Quarterly, Contemporary Literature, CENTRO, and Latino Studies. With Hsuan Hsu, he is the co-editor of "The Molecular Intimacies of Empire," a special forum of The Journal of Transnational American Studies and with Sarah D. Wald, Priscilla Solis Ybarra, Gabriela Enriqueta Nuñez, and Moe Gamez he is co-editor of “Re(creating) Latinx Outdoors,” a special issue of Diálogo. With Wald, Ybarra, Nuñez, and Gamez, Vázquez co-founded the Tierra Viva Collaborative, a group of humanities practitioners working across multiple institutions and producing numerous forms of peer-reviewed scholarship and public humanities work.

Dr. Vázquez is also a public intellectual, with published work in outlets like The Eugene Register-Guard and Salon. He regularly consults with national news organizations like The Washington Post and National Public Radio, and has appeared at institutions like the Brookings Institution, the HistoryMiami Museum, and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. 

In 2025 he held the William C. and Ida Friday Fellowship at the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. In 2013 he was a Fellow at the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University and in 2012 he was a Fellow at the Oregon Humanities Center. 

In addition to his research and writing, Vázquez founded and directs the Program in Latina/o/x Studies at American University. He currently serves as the President of the Latina/o Studies Association, the premier scholarly organization in the field of Latinx Studies. 

Vázquez regularly gives research talks, class visits, and presentations at universities and other public spaces on Latinx literature and culture, environmental justice, speculative film and fiction, and collaboration in the humanities. He is also available for media interviews and public appearances. Click here if would like to contact Professor Vázquez to request a talk, class visit, interview, or public appearance.