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As a result of having received several grants, I've spent quite a bit of time in Latin America, involved with feminist movements there, especially Argentina where I worked with feminists as well as with the Mothers of the Disappeared (Madres de Plaza de Mayo). In my own research, I examine women's literature and social movements as well as the connections between them. My work has inevitably led me to a re-reading of the Latin American canon that not only includes women but also analyzes the way women are used in canonical texts.

My two most recent published projects are regarding Latina playwrights and performers: the first is an anthology, Puro Teatro (2000), and the second is a volume of criticism on Latina playwrights, Stages of Life (2001), both published by the University of Arizona Press.  More recently, I have concentrated my efforts on study abroad, spending 2000-01 and 2005-06 as the Resident Director of the Preshco Program in Cordoba, Spain.   I continually advise students about their options in the Spanish-speaking world, such as the new program in Puebla, Mexico, which I helped to found. 

My current research has taken a new direction in that I am writing a memoir/oral history of my Sephardic family.  Using a combination of archival research, geneaology, interviews, web research, and the skills that I honed as a Latin Studies scholar, I am putting together a book about this Jewish minority which draws on my academic background but takes it to new places.   I hope to complete the manuscript during my upcoming sabbatical.

Some of the courses I've taught are: “Talking Back to Icons”; "Central American Literature"; "Contemporary Latina Playwrights"; "Latina and Latin American Women Writers"; "Hispanic Literature in the U.S."; "Testimonial Literature"; " Modernismo, Decadence, Turn of the Century"; "Latin American Society in the Novel"; "Survey of Latin American Literature"; "Latinos in Literature and Film"; "Spanish Conversation and Composition"; All levels of basic Spanish.

Stages of Life:Transcultural Performance and Identity in U.S. Latina Theater by Alberto Sandoval-Sanchez and Nancy Saporta Sternbach

Latina theater and solo performance emerged in the 1990s as vibrant, energetic new genres found on stages from New York to Los Angeles. Many women now work in all aspects of Latina theater—often as playwrights or solo performers—with practitioners ranging from teenagers to grandmothers. Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez and Nancy Saporta Sternbach have previously published a groundbreaking anthology of Latina theater, Puro Teatro. They now offer a critical analysis of theatrical works, presenting a theoretical perspective from which to examine, understand, and contextualize Latina theater as a genre in its own right. This is the first in-depth study of the entire corpus of Latina theater, based on close readings of works both published and in manuscript. It considers a large body of productions and performances, including works by such internationally known authors as Dolores Prida, Cherríe Moraga, and Janis Astor del Valle. Applying feminist and postcolonial theory as well as theories of transculturation, Sandoval-Sánchez and Sternbach show how, despite cultural differences among Latinas, their works share a common poetics by building upon the politics of representation, identity, and location. In addition to covering theater, this study also shows that solo performance has its own history, properties, structure, and poetics. It examines performances of Carmelita Tropicana, Monica Palacios, and Marga Gomez—artists whose hybrid identities as Latina lesbians constitute living examples of transculturation in the making—to show how solo performance has roots in and digresses from more traditional modes of theater. With their Latina heritage as a unifying link, these women reflect common traits, patterns, dramatic structures, and properties that overcome regional differences. Stages of Life reads these eclectic cultural productions as a unified body of work that contributes to the formation of Latina identity in America today.

Puro Teatro, A Latina Anthology edited by Alberto Sandoval-Sanchez and Nancy Saporta Sternbach

From plays produced on shoestring budgets in the 1970's to today's high-tech performance pieces, Latina theatre has emerged as a vibrant art form whose time has come.  This anthology showcases this dynamic new genre throught the works of established playwrights such as Cherrie Moraga and Dolores Prida as well as talented new playwrights and performers who have emerged in the past decade such as Migdalia Cruz, Elaine Romero, and Monica Palacios.

Included are a variety of theatrical genres: plays, performance pieces, puppet shows, innovative collaborations, and testimonials.  It features previously unpublished plays from a broad range of experieince within the Latino/a community, including families and home, friends and community building, coming of age and empowerment, and sexual and ethnic identities.  The editors' introduction provides a comprehensive survey of Latina theater, placing it in its theatrical context and examining its divergent roots.

Puro Teatro, A Latina Anthology is the first book of its kind to reflect in print a diversified body of writing that turns the spotlight on some of America's most talented and prolific artists.  A subsequent volume will complement this anthology with a theoretical, critical reading of Latina theatre and performance.

Breaking Boundaries: Latina Writing and Critical Readings by Nancy Saporta Sternbach

The flourishing body of literature created by women of Latin American descent who reside permanently in the United States has for the most part been ignored by the traditional Anglo- and Latin American literary canons. Breaking Boundaries is a major contribution to this new field. The book gathers together in one text a theoretical approach to Latina literary discourse, personal statements by writers themselves, and literary criticism from leading scholars in the field.

In order to preserve the cultural heritage of different Latina groups, the editors have organized the book into four sections, arranged chronologically. They begin with Chicanas, the first group to establish a literary presence in the United States. This is followed by an examination of Puertorrique–a writers, whose work reflects the experience of predominantly working-class Puerto-Ricans who came to the north-eastern United States during the mid- to late 1900's. The third section discusses Cubana writers, most of whom came to the United States after 1959 as a result of the Cuban revolution. The last section treats writers from other Latin American countries. Each section begins with personal statements ( testimonios) by Latina writers from that group. The book concludes with a detailed bibliography.