Dr. Ana Sabau

Biography

Ana Sabau is an Associate Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan. She specializes in Spanish and her research focuses on the study of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Latin American written and visual culture, with a special emphasis on Mexico. Her book, 'Race War Paradigm: Riot Rebellion Mexico' (UT Press, 2022), was awarded the LASA Mexico Book Humanities Prize. In this work, she critiques the political paradigm of the 'race war,' arguing that appeals to the alleged threat of racial uprisings were crucial in mediating Mexico’s complex transition from a Spanish colony to an independent nation-state. Sabau challenges conventional histories of the erosion of racial boundaries in Mexico, asserting that both Independence and colonial racializing practices and policies were continuously adapted by the new government to contain and repress popular demands for freedom and democracy. She is the author of numerous articles published in both collected volumes and peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies and Revista de Estudios Hispánicos. Her research interests include the histories of labor and property, the interplay of these processes with racialization, as well as the exploration of Mexico’s integration into global networks of indentured convict labor and issues surrounding the social reproduction of domestic work.

Research Interests

Courses