Raquel Moreira

Dr. Raquel Moreira is an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, Media, & Culture in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her broader research agenda is concerned with issues of marginalization within minoritized groups in Latin/e America. Currently, Dr. Moreira is investigating hemispheric constructions of Latinidad, particularly the connections between mestizaje/mestiçagem and (anti) Blackness as they intersect with other colonial systems of gender and sexuality, national identity, and class. Her work has been published in journals such as Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication and Race, Women’s Studies in Communication, International Journal of Communication, Celebrity Studies, among others. Moreira is also the author of Bitches Unleashed: Performance and Embodied Politics in Favela Funk (Peter Lang, 2021), which has received the 2021 Bonnie Ritter Feminist Book Award, the NCA's 2022 International and Intercultural Communication Division Best Book Award, as well as Central States Communication Association's 2023 Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Caucus' Innovator Book Award.

Dr. Moreira's feminist and antiracist pedagogy is committed to creating spaces of collaboration, self-reflection, and social change. She has taught numerous courses in media theory and criticism, race, gender, and sexuality in popular culture, and many more. Teaching is the original reason she joined academia and, after spending the last decade teaching at liberal arts universities, Moreira is excited to connect with UMD students.