Carmen Lamas

Carmen Lamas is an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia, jointly appointed to the Department of English and the Department of American Studies. Her work bridges Latinx literary traditions with hemispheric American and Latin American studies, focusing on 19th-century to contemporary scholarship.

• PhD, University of Pennsylvania
• M.A., Georgetown University
• B.S./B.A., Florida State University

Lamas specializes in Latinx literary cultures, translation practices, and historiography of the Americas. Her research interrogates the intersections of race, migration, and transnational identity through 19th-century texts, digital humanities projects, and collaborative editorial work.

Her recent publications highlight the enduring relevance of 19th-century Latinx literature, emphasizing translation as both a creative and political act. Themes include hemispheric transformations, Afro-Latinx representation, and archival recovery of marginalized voices.

• LASA 2022 Latinx Studies Book Award
• MLA 2023 Book Prize
• All-University Teaching Award, 2022
• Buckner W. Clay Award, 2021
• Henry Luce Project Course Development Award, 2018

As co-founder of the Latina/o Studies Association and editor of Pasados, Lamas champions interdisciplinary collaboration. She has presented widely, including plenary addresses at MACLAS and the MLA Conference, and serves on editorial boards like J19 and Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage.