Welcome to New Faculty Member Natalie Avalos!
Dr. Avalos is as a Chancellor鈥檚 Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Ethnic Studies and will be joining the department as an Assistant Professor in the 2020-21 academic year. Prior to joining 精品SM在线影片 as a postdoc, she taught Religious Studies at Connecticut College. A Chicana of Apache descent, Dr. Avalos was born and raised in the Bay Area. She received her doctorate from the University of California at Santa Barbara in Religious Studies with a special focus on Native American and Indigenous Religious Traditions and Tibetan Buddhism. She is a Ford Predoctoral Fellow, FTE Dissertation Fellow, and recipient of UC Santa Barbara鈥檚 Humanities Dissertation Research Fellowship. Dr. Avalos is an ethnographer of religion whose work in comparative Indigeneities explores the religious dimensions of transnational Native American and Tibetan decolonial movements.
She is currently working on her manuscript titled The Metaphysics of Decoloniality: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusal. It argues that the reassertion of Indigenous metaphysics not only de-centers settler colonial claims to legitimate knowledge but also articulates new forms of sovereignty rooted in just (and ideal) relations of power between all persons, human and other-than human.
Dr. Avalos is very happy to be back in this region of the country, where there is so much sun but also green chile鈥攈er favorite food! She's thrilled to be part of such a dynamic department, where she can support diverse students of all backgrounds.
The Department of Ethnic Studies is equally delighted to welcome Dr. Avalos!