معرفی
Elizabeth Barrios is an Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at Albion College's College of Arts and Sciences, specializing in ecology, energy humanities, and Latin American/Latina/o cultural production with emphasis on Venezuela and its diaspora.
Her research interrogates oil's sociocultural and ecological legacies through literary analysis and critical theory. The forthcoming monograph Failures of the Imagination: Reckoning with Oil in Venezuelan Cultural Production (2026) examines how Venezuelan media confront oil's hidden ecological tolls, while her Plastic Environmentalisms project analyzes oil industry greenwashing campaigns across Venezuela, Colombia, and Perú. She coins "plastic environmentalism" to describe depictions of nature as timeless/pure—a concept linked to petrochemical aesthetics—and conducts the Climate Stories of the Venezuelan Andes oral history initiative documenting local ecological knowledge.
Her pedagogical excellence is recognized through:
- Teaching Innovation Award (2021)
- Students’ Choice Award (2022)
- Teacher of the Year Award (2025)
