Susana Vargas Cervantes

Biography

Vargas Cervantes teaches, writes, and curates. She is internationally recognized for her artistic work at the intersections of alternative criminology, visual studies, and queer studies—in both Anglo North America and Latin America. She has co-curated exhibitions at Tate Britain, Museo Jumex, and Ford Foundation Gallery. After a Fulbright stay at Columbia University, she joined Carleton University as a professor in Communication and Media Studies. Her work has been featured in Photographers Gallery, Luna Cornea, Frieze, I-D, Vice, El País, CBS Inside Edition, Radio Canada, BBC, Musee Magazine. She has been invited to present her work at the New Museum (NYC), Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MX), Museo Jumex (MX), Beursschouwburg (BE), amongst others. She is the author of the book The Little Old Lady Killer: The Sensationalized Crimes of Mexico’s First Female Serial Killer (NYU Press, 2019) made into a Netflix Documentary, Mujercitos (Editorial RM, 2015) and Service Top: Bad Bunny, mirando la’ estrella’ sin telescopio (Gato Negro, 2023). She is currently working on two major projects: a manuscript on Alarma! Photography of violence and affects and her first documentary feature film: El Bautizo de la Chilaquil, the untold story of female (homo)sexuality in Mexico.

Her research has been supported by the Faculty of Public Affairs (Carleton), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Fulbright Fellowship, Fonds Quebecois de Recherche sur la Société et la Culture, Art History and Communication Studies (McGill) and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM, MX). Vargas Cervantes is a board member of Queer and Trans Histories, Manchester University Press and the Communication and Race Journal, National Communication Association.

For more information visit my website: https://susanisima.com

Publications

Books

• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2019). The Little Old Lady Killer: The Sensationalized Crimes of Mexico’s First Female Serial Killer. NYU Press.
• Martínez Zalce, G., Vargas Cervantes, S., & Straw, W. (Eds.). (2011) Aprehendiendo al delincuente: sociedad y medios en Norteamérica. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México-CISAN.

Articles (SELECTED)

• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2024). “La mirada del asesino serial.” Cuicuilco. Revista mexicana de Antropología (90), 215-246.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2024). Questions on communication and Race in Mexico. Communication and Race, 1–11.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2024). “Whiteness, blanquedad, y blancura: pigmentocracia y la percepción en México” Revista Mexicana de Sociologia.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2022). “Pigmentocracy and the performance of whiteness in contemporary photography: Yvonne Venegas’s San Pedro Garza and Dana Lixenberg’s United States.” Feminist Media Studies.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2014). “Alarma! Mujercitos performing gender in 1970s Mexico.” Transgender Studies Quarterly Duke, 1(4), 552-558.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2010). “Performing Mexicanidad: Criminality and Lucha Libre.” Crime, Media and Culture, 6(2), 185- 203.

Chapters in Edited Books

• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2014). Saliendo del clóset: ¿gay, maricón o queer? In A. Brito & R. Parrini (Eds.), La Memoria y el deseo. Estudios gay y queer en México. PUEG. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2011). El que ríe al ultimo, ríe mejor: Mujercitos en la nota roja en México durante los años 70. In G. Martínez Zalce, S. Vargas Cervantes, W. Straw (Eds.), Aprehendiendo al delincuente: sociedad y medios en Norteamérica. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México & Media@McGill.

Other Publications

Books

• Vargas Cervantes, Susana. Bad Bunny. Mirando la’ estrella’ sin telescopio. Gato Negro Publicaciones, 2023.
• Vargas Cervantes, Susana. Mujercitos. Editorial RM, 2014.

Selected Articles (SELECTED)

• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2024). “El Bautizo de la Chilaquil.” Revista de la Universidad.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2024). “How Is a Criminal Constructed in the Public Eye?” Voices of Mexico. No. 121.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2024). “Juana Belén: de ‘viril’ a ‘vil’ y el ejemplo que necesitamos en los libros de historia.” La Escuela Art.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2022). Joan E. Biren.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2022). “Masculinidades” Femsa, Mexico.

• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2024). “La Guerra en Gaza y las banderas arcoíris. Occidente como falso paraíso queer.” El País.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2023). “Bad Bunny y El Imperio del placer.” El País.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2019). “Día de las madres: Una invención capitalista.” Panóptico, Revista de la Universidad de México.

• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2017). Queer as utopia. Notes from the future: a crossbreed laborer’s diary.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2017). “Everything is compromised.” Millennial Feminisms.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2017). “Comfy on steroids.” Anna Uddenberg. i-D Magazine.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2016). “Defendamos ¿el matrimonio?” Horizontal.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2016). “Pigmentocracy in Contemporary Art.” Terremoto: Contemporary Art in the Americas, 6.

Catalogue and Artist’s Book Essays (SELECTED)

• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2025). “Journey to the Center of the Truth” Photographers Gallery, London, May 2025.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2025). “Can we love those we don’t know?” CARA, New York, May 2025
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2025). “Cuerpo Mercantilizado” Luna Cornea, no. 39. October, 2024.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2024). “Cascabela”. Pedro y Juana. Museo Universitario del Chopo.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2022). “De la ambigüedad de silencios” Alexander Apóstol, Museo universitario de arte Contemporáneo/CAM2.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2022). “The Feminist Drive of Languages” Mercedes Azpillicueta, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein.
• Vargas Cervantes, S.(2022) “Las masculinidades del falso camaleón: Erauso entre Cortezii y la Malitzin en la Nueva España.” Cabello/Carceller. Una voz para Erauso, Centro Azkuna, Bilbao, España.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2022). “The feminist drive of languages.” Mercedes Azpillicueta, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2019). “Crocheted entanglements.” ektor garcía. Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany.
• Vargas Cervantes, S. (2016). “Revolt, they say!” Andrea Geyer: Travels on Slender Thread. The New Foundation Seattle.

Scholarly Work in Progress

• Alarma: Fotografía de violencia y afectos.
• Queer/Cuir from Latin America. Routledge. [Under contract]