Education

Ph.D. History, University of Connecticut, 2022

• Graduate Certificate in Human Rights 
• Dissertation: Struggles for Appearance: Afro-descendants and the Visual Technologies of Citizenship in Colombia, 1880-1940
• Committee: Mark Healey (Chair), Melina Pappademos, Robin Greeley

M.A. History, University of Connecticut, 2017.

B.A. History, Universidad de Cartagena, 2012

• Honor Roll (Academic Fee Waiver), 2007-2010
• Thesis: Independencia, Tierras y Comunidad en el Resguardo de San Geronimo de Mamatoco 1770-1830.
•  [Independence, Land, and Community in the indigenous territory of San Geronimo de Mamatoco, 1770-1830]

Biography

Luisa Fernanda Arrieta received her Ph.D. from the History Department at the University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on national museums as stages for the performative embodiment of the state and as tools for the construction of national identities. She was one of the recipients of the Latino Museums Studies Program fellowships hosted by the Smithsonian Latino Center in Washington D.C in Summer 2018. There, she connected her work on the representation of Afro-Colombians in Colombia’s national museums with the representation of Latino/as in the U.S. at the Smithsonian. She continued her work with the SI as a curator for the Smithsonian Museum of the American Latino digital and contemporary exhibit. In 2019 she was a recipient of the HWW Public Humanities fellowship. He was also a Research Fellow at Greenhouse Studios, the center for Digital Humanities projects at the University of Connecticut where she collaborated on several projects that use digital strategies and comprehensive historical research to develop tools for inclusion and representation.

Courses Taught

Instructor of Record, Department of History, University of Connecticut
Developed and taught small undergraduate lecture courses.
U.S History since 1877, writing course, [Spr 2018]

Teaching Assistant, Department of History, University of Connecticut
Discussion section leader in large undergraduate lecture courses

• “History of Digital Media,” Fall 2018 (Scheinfeld)
• “U.S. History since 1877,” Fall 2017 (Baldwin), Spr 2017 (Ogbar)
• “Early American History,” Spr 2018 (Dayton), Fall 2016 (Eves)
•  “African American History,” Spr 2016 (Ogbar)

Research Interests

• Cultural Nationalism and Citizenship
• Museums and Public History
• Visual Narratives
• African Diaspora
• Popular Culture
• Human Rights in the Americas
• Latinx Studies

Publications

“A Museum of Regeneration: Nation, Race, and Visual Culture in Colombia’s National Museum, 1880-1886” "Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies "29 (2020) 

Overmyer-Velázquez, Mark, ed. "Construyendo el Gran México: La emigración a Estado Unidos." Mexico City: Editorial del Colegio de San Luis, forthcoming 2021. [Spanish translation of "Beyond la Frontera," revised and expanded edition]

Digital Humanities

LandGrabCT
Content Curator Smithsonian Museum of the American Latino

News

PUBLIC TALKS

Indigenizing Connecticut curriculum. Where We Live. WNPR. October 2021. 

The Right to Be Seen. Global Linkages Lecture. Links International Trends and Services. October 2021.

Afro-Latinxs in the United States. Hispanic Heritage Month Dialogue. Office of the General Attorney for the District of Columbia Karl A. Racine. 2020.