Jennifer S. Ponce de León

Jennifer S. Ponce de León is Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, with cross-appointments in Latin American and Latinx Studies, Comparative Literature, Gender/Sexuality/Women's Studies, and Cinema Studies. She is also a member of the graduate group in Hispanic Studies and serves as Associate Director of the Critical Theory Workshop. During the 2025-2026 academic year, she will be in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Her research spans cultural studies of the Americas, Marxist theory, anticolonial thought, and the relationship between experimental art practices and political movements. Dr. Ponce de León examines how Mexican, Chicanx, Argentine, and Chilean artists have developed forms of social protest art connected to anti-systemic movements including Zapatismo, anti-displacement struggles, and resistance to imperialist trade agreements.

Dr. Ponce de León's publication record includes the monograph Another Aesthetics Is Possible: Arts of Rebellion in the Fourth World War (Duke University Press, 2021), co-edited volumes including Puto: The Selected Plays of Ricardo A. Bracho (forthcoming 2026), and numerous scholarly articles in journals such as American Quarterly, Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, and GLQ. She is currently working on three major book projects examining U.S. empire, revolutionizing aesthetics, and U.S. Latinx Marxisms.

As a curator, Dr. Ponce de León has organized significant exhibitions including Resurgent Pasts, Insurgent Futures (2017) and Arrhythmias of Counter-Production: Engaged Art in Argentina, 1995-2011 (2013). Her curatorial work demonstrates the intersection of academic research with public programming and artistic practice.

Dr. Ponce de León received her PhD in American Studies from New York University, her MA in Art History from UCLA, and her AB in Literature from Harvard University. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges literary studies, art history, performance studies, and political theory, providing students with diverse academic pathways across multiple departments and research centers.