Robert Mendoza

Robert Mendoza is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at California Lutheran University, where he has taught since Fall 2023 after completing his PhD in English at the University of California, Los Angeles (2023).

Education:

• PhD in English, University of California, Los Angeles, 2023

His research centers on labor representation in 20th-century Multiethnic US literature, with a focus on movement-era writings (1960s-1970s) from the Black Arts Movement, Chicano Movement, and Nuyorican Movement. He analyzes how authors like Gwendolyn Brooks, Oscar Zeta Acosta, and Pedro Pietri depicted struggles of Black and Brown workers, redefining the proletariat as a category of dispossession and extending resistance beyond formal labor markets through urban riots, student walkouts, and informal labor contexts.

Areas of expertise include Multiethnic US Literature, Post-1945 US Literature, Chicano Literature, and 20th Century African American Literature. His teaching integrates critical analysis of labor and capitalism with skill development in textual analysis, pattern recognition, and communication.

Dr. Mendoza mentors undergraduate students through courses in Chicano Literature, African American Literature, and Post-Civil War US Literature, emphasizing critical thinking about power structures while cultivating marketable skills for career readiness.