Paola Uparela, a former doctoral affiliate who earned her PhD in 2019, has been awarded the prestigious Alfred B. Thomas Book Award by the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS) for her 2024 publication, Invaginaciones Coloniales: mirada, genitalidad y (de)generación en la modernidad temprana. The Alfred B. Thomas Book Award is presented annually to the author of the best book on a Latin American subject published by a SECOLAS member in the previous year, recognizing outstanding scholarship in the field.
Invaginaciones Coloniales explores the representation and regulation of female bodies and sexuality in early modern colonial contexts, examining how visual, medical, and literary discourses shaped understandings of gender and difference during the 15th to 17th centuries. Uparela, now a professor at the University of Florida, has been lauded for her innovative approach and critical insight into colonial histories of gender and corporeality