Cristina D Ramírez

Dr. Cristina Devereaux Ramírez is a Professor and Department Head of the Department of English at the University of Arizona. She received her doctoral degree in English with a focus in Rhetoric and Writing Studies at The University of Texas at El Paso in 2010. Prior to her graduate school work, she taught middle and high school English Literature and Composition for 13 years with the El Paso Independent School District in Texas. Her current research focuses on archival and rhetorical recovery of Mexican and Mexican American women from the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Dr. Ramírez has published two feminist historical recovery books. Her first, Occupying Our Space: The Mestiza Rhetorics of Mexican Women Journalists and Activists, 1887-1942 (University of Arizona Press, 2015), won the 2016 Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Prize from the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition. Her second, Mestiza Rhetorics: An Anthology of Mexicana Activism in the Spanish Language Press, 1875-1922 (Southern Illinois University Press, 2019) was co-authored with Dr. Jessica Enoch of the University of Maryland and funded with a Research Initiative grant from the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

Dr. Ramírez presented, in Spanish, in October 2019 on her second book at two research institutions in Mexico, El Colegio de San Luis Potosí and Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas. She is currently a grant-funded research fellow at the University of Houston’s US Hispanic Recovery Project, working on a digital humanities effort to archive her maternal Mexican American grandmother’s collection of writings. Dr. Ramirez is also working on a related project with a university press to publish a book of those writings that capture a distinct regional feminist voice from the early and mid- 20^th Century.

Teaching stands at the heart of Dr. Ramírez’s work. With a 30-year teaching career, she has taught hundreds of students about writing, critical thinking, and personal career development. Currently, she teaches courses in archival research practices, histories of rhetoric, and composition theory, and she advises and mentors master’s and doctoral students in job placement and advanced academic development. 

Dr. Ramírez is also active in national and international academic coalitions. She currently serves as coordinating board member for the International Rhetoric Workshop, which is scheduled to hold a hybrid symposium in September 2021 at El Colegio de San Luis, and is a former secretary and active board member of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars. She is affiliate faculty of Latin American Studies, Mexican American, and Mexico Initiatives. Dr. Ramirez seeks to constructively collaborate with programs and organizations locally, nationally, and internationally to expand student’s working knowledge of how writing functions theoretically and practically in our everyday society.

Research Interests

Feminist Writing Theory and Pedagogy / Histories of Rhetoric / Feminist Histories of Rhetoric, Archival Research / Historiography, Gender Studies / Mexican and Mexican American Studies / Professional Writing Pedagogies / Translation Theory and Studies

Link to Occupying Our Space: The Mestiza Rhetorics of Mexican Women Journalists and Activists, 1875-1942

Link to Mestiza Rhetorics: An Anthology of Mexicana Activism in the Spanish-Language Press, 1887-1922

Creative Productions / Interviews

Ramirez, C.D. (2019, Nov.). Hablemos 2019. Mujeres Mexicanas. El Colegio de San Luis.

Ramírez, C.D. and Jessica Enoch (2019, Nov.). “She Speaks,” Podcast interview on Rhetorically Speaking with Cassie Wright. E10. Stanford University.

Ramírez, C. D. (2018, Jan.). KUAR “Ocupando Nuestro Puesto.” Radio interview (recorded) with Bradly Minnick. Arts & Letters Radio Show. Little Rock, Arkansas: U of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Ramírez, C.D. (2015, May) Radio interview with “Broad Perspectives.” KXCI 93.1. Tucson, AZ local, independent radio.

Ramírez, C.D. (2015, Aug.). “Occupying Our Space” UA scholar Cristina Ramírez explores the

legacy of Mexico’s female journalists in a new book.” With F. Echavarri. NPR at UA.