Congratulations to Dr. Ernesto Chavez
History Department Community-
Please join me in congratulating Dr. Ernesto Chavez for receiving a very prestigious year-long fellowship from The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University.
https://casbs.stanford.edu/news/casbs-announces-2020-21-fellows
Dr. Chavez received this fellowship to help him work on his book manuscript tentatively titled, “Body and Soul: The Closeted Performance of Ramón Novarro.”
This manuscript seeks to foreground queer Latinx people within the scholarship of LGBT Studies and Chicanx/Latinx Studies. His project uses an array of material from archives in the U.S., Mexico, and the United Kingdom. As Dr. Chavez argues in his proposal, his project “reveal(s) how this Mexican-born, devout Roman Catholic, gay actor (perhaps best known today as a victim of a brutal murder by a male hustler in 1968) performed the closet and in so doing was able to negotiate the Hollywood studio system and achieve stardom in an era generally hostile to gay men. Examining Novarro’s life helps us understand not only how one man navigated the apparent contradictions in his life regarding his race, religion, and sexuality, but how Hollywood, and society more broadly, was shaped and reshaped by evolving notions of masculinity, sexuality, nationality, and race.”
This major book project will surely offer a significant contribution to the historical profession, particularly within the fields of LGBT Studies, Chicanx/Latinx Studies, and film studies. We are very fortunate to have Dr. Chavez in the Department and we wish him the best of luck with this fellowship. We look forward to seeing this path breaking book in publication.
Once again, Congratulations Dr. Chavez!