Esther Teixeira

Esther Teixeira is an Associate Professor at Texas Christian University's AddRan College of Liberal Arts within the Spanish & Hispanic Studies department. She holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Studies from Purdue University, alongside advanced degrees in Women’s Studies and Latin American Literature, and a B.A. in Brazilian Literature from Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil.

• Specializes in sex work narratives across Latin American literature and film from late 19th to 21st centuries
• Focuses on gender/sexuality studies and testimonial writing traditions

Her research examines racial dynamics in Brazilian naturalist fiction, particularly whiteness construction in O Cortiço by Aluísio Azevedo, and analyzes 19th-century Peruvian discourses about white women's prostitution in Mercedes Cabello's Blanca Sol. She explores Laura Restrepo's La novia oscura through naturalist repetition and marginal subjectivity frameworks.

Teixeira co-authored the introduction to Gabriela Leite's posthumous memoir Daughter, Mother, Grandmother and Whore, analyzing how sex workers' self-narratives challenge hegemonic criticism. She implements presentist pedagogical approaches in service-learning courses with Latinx communities, examining pandemic-exacerbated inequalities through historical lenses.