Pablo Zavala

Dr. Pablo Zavala's research focuses on Mexican studies, Latinx studies, and border studies, broadly construed. He is interested in understanding and deconstructing, through a cultural studies lens, identity fictions in the cultural constellation of left-wing politics, state formation, and print culture.

His book, Forging a Mexican People: Collective Subjectivities in Postrevolutionary Print Culture, 1917-1968, was published in 2026 with the University of Arizona Press. In the monograph, he draws theoretical analysis from literary, visual, and cultural studies to argue that the prints, illustrated newspapers, magazines, broadsheets, and booklets that circulated in the country during and after the Mexican Revolution (1910-20) constructed a concept of “the people” that challenged the hegemonic formation of identity and the nation.

At Loyola University New Orleans, Dr. Zavala teaches Spanish-language, Latin American, and Latinx literatures and cultures courses. He is also the director of the Latin American Studies program and is a founding member of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)-Loyola chapter.

Dr. Zavala grew up crossing borders: he was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México, and is a first-generation scholar from a working-class background.

Classes Taught

• LAS A494: Mexican Film
• LAS H295: Mexican Postrevolutionary Art (Honors)
• LAS N205: Latinx Experiences Through Literature (Loyola Core)
• LAS N200: Latin American Literature in Translation (Loyola Core)
• LAS O294: Latinx Film (Loyola Core)
• LAS O217: Immigration on Film (Loyola Core)
• LAS O200: Intro to Latin American Contemporary Cultured (Loyola Core)
• SPAN A494: Benito Juárez in New Orleans
• SPAN A455: Latin American Populism
• SPAN A394: Mexican Muralism
• Composition and conversation Spanish
• Elementary, Intermediate, and advanced Spanish

Areas of Expertise

• Mexican and Latin American studies
• Print culture
• Border and Latinx studies