DEPARTMENT OF SPANISH & PORTUGUESE

Yasmin S. Portales-Machado holds a Diploma in Creative Writing from the "Onelio Jorge Cardoso" Literary Center (2003), Bachelor of Theater Studies from the Cuban University of the Arts (2007), and a Master's in Romance Languages from the University of Oregon. She specializes in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Latin American speculative literature, gender and sexuality studies, and queer theory.

 Prof. Portales-Machado's research explores the intersections of science fiction, Afro-Caribbean identity, and sexualities, as well as the legacies of colonialism, neocolonialism, the Cold War, and climate change in Spanish Caribbean speculative cultural production.

 She is currently working on the research project "Queer People in Strange Times: Families and Sexualities in Contemporary Cuban Science Fiction", which explores how Cuban writers have used the science fiction genre to deconstruct the heteronormative notions about gender roles and family present in Cuban nationalist discourse. The project argues that it is possible to recognize how the paradoxical insertion of sexual dissidence in Cuban speculative fiction criticizes, deconstructs, or refutes several sexual policies promoted by the Cuban socialist government between 1970 and 2010, using the government's resources to promote these ideas.

 Professor Portales-Machado has taught Spanish at the University of Oregon, Northwestern University, and Chicago City College, served as a teaching assistant for literature courses on Cervantes and the Latin American avant-garde, and designed and taught "Introduction to Science Fiction" for incarcerated students through Northwestern Prison Education Program.

 She is also a podcast host and fiction writer. Her podcast "Other Voices from the Caribbean" is part of the New Books Network consortium of author interview podcast channels. Her interviews discuss fiction or non-fiction books written by Caribbean authors or focused on the Caribbean region. Portales-Machado stories have been included in the antologies "El día después del eclipse (antología de ciencia ficción latinoamericana escrita por mujeres)" (2025), "Confederación eléctrica antillana. Antología de ciencia ficción caribeña" (2023), "Navegar Chicago" (2022), "Deuda temporal. Antología de narradoras cubanas de ciencia ficción" (2015), and "Sombras nada más. 36 escritoras cubanas contra la violencia hacia la mujer" (2015).

Personal web: https://yasminsportalesmachado.com/

Peer-reviewed Articles and Book Chapters

 "Ella prefiere ir con los monstruos. Una lectura crítica de los debates antirracistas en Espiral." Cuerpos de las sombras: Afrodisidencia sexual en la Cuba global. Editorial Educación Emergente, Under Review.

 “De cómo un cubano predijo el fin de la monogamia leyendo a Engels. A propósito de las especulaciones sobre telepatía, sociedad y sexualidad en Espiral de Agustín de Rojas.” Ínsulas extrañas, volumen 2. San Juan (P.R.): La secta de los perros, 2024, pp. 137-155.

 “El Negrito Cimarrón y la representación audiovisual del cimarronaje en Cuba.” Temas, no. 118, June 2024, pp. 69–77.

 “La Fábula de una Familia Cuir. Reflexiones Sobre Feminismo y Poliamor en una Novela de Daína Chaviano.” Isla Diseminada. Ensayos Sobre Cuba, Justo Planas, Reynaldo Lastre, Jorge Alvis and Alex Werner, Hypermedia, 2022, pp. 385–408.

 “Future Lives, Virtual Lives, Illegal Lives. How Resistance to the Law Is Normalized in Two Cuban Futurist Fictions.” Breaking Fantastic, Mario-Paul Martínez Fabre and Fran Mateu, International Congress of Fantastic Genre, Audiovisuals and New Technologies, 2021, pp.165–74.

 “En busca de Estraven. Modelos de sexualidad en la ciencia ficción cubana.” La isla y las estrellas. El ensayo y la crítica de ciencia ficción en Cuba, Rinaldo Acosta, Editorial Cubaliteraria, 2015, pp. 138–208.

 “Female Voices in Cuban Blogosphere: Did More than Just Support Change?” Women Past and Present: Biographic and Multidisciplinary Studies, Maria Zina Gonçalves de Abreu, Steve Fleetwood, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014, pp. 253–59.

 “Primer mapa posible de la obra de José Milián en el siglo XX.” Temas, no. 60, October –December, 2009, pp. 114–23.