K.C. Barrientos

Dr. K.C. Barrientos is a Lecturer in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of South Carolina's College of Arts and Sciences. Her research explores female suffering and reclamation in 20th- and 21st-century feminist poetry from the Spanish Afro-Caribbean canon, with a focus on intersections of race, migration, and postcolonial theory.

• PhD in Spanish and Portuguese Literatures, University of Notre Dame
• BA/MA summa cum laude in Spanish Literature and Latin American & Caribbean Studies, University at Albany

She teaches honors-level Spanish courses including SPAN122, SPAN210, and SPAN303, employing dynamic, interdisciplinary methods to examine topics like colonial encounters, imperialism, and cultural intersections between the Spanish-speaking world and the West.

• Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship

Dr. Barrientos's work engages with critical theorists including Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Angela Davis, and Gloria Anzaldúa, while analyzing foundational texts by Elizabeth Acevedo and Gustavo Pérez-Firmat. Her teaching also explores Central American and Caribbean diasporas, decoloniality, and postcolonial tourism.