The Department of Ethnic Studies UC Berkeley

Bio & Research Interests

José Eduardo Valdivia Heredia (they/elle/ellx) is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, where they were a recipient of the Chancellor’s Fellowship. They are a queer Chicanx artist and scholar from Sonoma, California. José received a B.A. in Religion and Latin American/Latino Studies from Swarthmore College (2023), where they co-founded Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal. Their undergraduate thesis explored notions of nationalism, “high” art, and popular entertainment in La Más Draga, a Mexican drag reality competition. 

At UC Berkeley, José’s research broadly examines visual culture and performance in the Black Atlantic, focusing on the environment, gender, spirituality, and technology. They are developing an idea of “sacred green(s)/technology” and “vegetal erotics,” to ask how queer/trans* Black artists both represent and challenge our relationships to technological advancement and eco-apocalypse. Orbiting around the concepts of “catastrophe” and “consumption”—and in conversation with Afrofuturism, Afropessimism, critical animal/plant studies, and trans* studies—they analyze aesthetic projects of critique against the Human, as well as creative imaginings of possibilities for being-otherwise, or becoming-with as a fungal/vegetal ethical mode of decomposition, flow, growth, rot, symbiosis… Ultimately, the artists that José examines intervene in current scholarship on posthuman literary, sonic, and visual ecologies embedded within phenomena like science fiction and digital colonialism. 

Education

(2023) B.A. Latin American/Latino Studies & Religion, Swarthmore College, Undergraduate Thesis: “¿Gays, maricas o algo más? La Más Draga‘s Queer Performance of Mexicanidad at the Intersection of Art, Nationalism, and Popular Entertainment.”

Publications

(forthcoming) “Cyborg-Becomings: Mutant Refusals of Being as Event.” Xeno Futurism, Issue 2: Technologies of Domination.

(June 2023) “Introduction: Toward an Ethical Mutilation of the ‘Human’ and ‘Body.’” Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal 1(2), 1–16. 

(May 2023) “¿Gays, maricas o algo más? La Más Draga’s Queer Performance of Mexicanidad at the Intersection of Art, Nationalism, and Popular Entertainment.” Swarthmore Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards. 

(Jan. 2023) “‘The Work We Came Here to Do’: Crossings, An Introduction.” Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal 1(1), 1–16.

(Oct. 2022) “The Poetics of Krudxs Cubensi in Concierto Abortero: Abortion, Music, and Transnational Feminism(s).” In Rethinking Queer and Trans Latinx: Latinx Talk Mini-Reader #4, edited by Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, Maylei Blackwell, and Francisco J. Galarte, 91–96. Columbus: Ohio State University Libraries, 2022.

Conferences & Panels

(forthcoming) “Trans* Posthumanism and Vegetable Erotics in the Black Caribbean” (paper). Genres of the (Post)Human: Representing Evolution in Science/Fiction (panel). 59th Annual Northeast Modern Language Association Convention. La Salle University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 6–9 March 2025.

“Entre Puñal y Rosas: Trans* Touch and the Mexican Nation” (paper). Harmonizing Pleasures: Jotería Performance and Sounds (panel). 2024 Association for Jotería Arts, Activism, and Scholarship National Conference (conference). California State University, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, 15–18 February 2024.

“On Black, Vegan Cyborgs and Corn UFOs: Afro-Caribbean Futurism and Santería Tech-niques in the Work of Krudxs Cubensi” (paper). Supernatural Abjections: Challenging Cuban Cosmovisions (panel). El Monte: Narratives, Aesthetics, and Afrodiasporic Spirituality in the Contemporary Caribbean (conference). Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 9–10 November 2023. 

Courses Assisted

CHICANO50: Introduction to Chicano History (Fall 2024)

Awards, Fellowships, & Honors

Decolonial Knowledges Summer Research Grant. “Trans* Touch & the Mexican Nation” (project). Decolonial Knowledges and Pluriversal University Working Group, Latinx Research Center, UC Berkeley, June 2024.

LRC Viajerxs Graduate Travel Grant. Latinx Research Center, UC Berkeley, Feb. 2024.

Graduate Conference Travel Grant. Graduate Division, UC Berkeley, Oct. 2023.

Phi Beta Kappa Fellowship. Swarthmore Chapter, Epsilon of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, Sept. 2023. 

Latinos Unidos de Sonoma County Scholarship. Latinos Unidos de Sonoma County, Aug. 2023. 

Chancellor’s Fellowship. Graduate Division, UC Berkeley, 2023–2024. 

Joshua Lippincott Fellowship. Swarthmore College, 2023–24. 

Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society. Swarthmore Chapter, Epsilon of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, May 2023. 

Jesse H. Holmes Prize in Religion. “Of Bodies and Flesh: Sensuous Archives in Afro-Atlantic Religions” (paper). Department of Religion, Swarthmore College, May 2023. 

Jesse H. Holmes Prize in Religion. “Rastafari Vibrations: Dancing to Heal, Drumming to Destroy” (paper). Department of Religion, Swarthmore College, May 2022. 

Swarthmore College Honors Fellowship. “La jotería y el proteccionismo cultural mexicano” (project). Academic Division Funding, Honors Program, Swarthmore College, May 2022. 

Alejandro Reyes Award for Excellence in Latin American Studies. Pan-American Association of Philadelphia, April 2022.

Creative Works

(forthcoming) “a note on care.” QTR: A Journal of Trans and Queer Studies in Religion, Issue 2. Creative Writing. 

(Spring 2024) “Malinallitzin.” Queer Aesthetics, Issue 01. Creative Writing. 

(May 2023) “a labor of love.” Portfolio Site. Video Art & Photography. 

(March 2023) “What the Water Carries.” Portfolio Site. Multimedia Digital Story.