Elaine Peña

Elaine Peña

Professor of Performing Arts, American Culture Studies, and Anthropology
Faculty Affiliate, Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2)
PhD, Northwestern University
research interests:
  • Border and Borderlands Studies
  • Hemispheric Latinx Performance
  • Diasporic and Material Religion
  • Built Environment
  • Performance Ethnography  
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    • WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
      MSC-1108-193-312
      ONE BROOKINGS DRIVE
      ST. LOUIS, MO 63130-4899
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    Professor Peña’s research centers around the study of borders, the study of religion, and the study of hemispheric Latinx performance. 

    Trained between Performance Studies and Cultural Anthropology, her work looks carefully at the production and transmission of knowledge from a range of vantage points—from the printed word to embodied practice to the built environment. She is the author of two acclaimed books Performing Piety: Making Space Sacred with the Virgin of Guadalupe (University of California Press, 2011) and ¡Viva George! Celebrating Washington’s Birthday at the U.S.-Mexico Border (University of Texas Press, 2020). She also edited Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s Ethno-techno: Writings on performance, activism, and pedagogy (Routledge, 2005) and contributed to Gómez-Peña Unplugged: Texts on Live Art, Social Practice and Imaginary Activism (2008-2020) (Routledge, 2020).