Juffer

Professor of English Jane Juffer examines the effects of an influx of Latinos on small Midwestern towns in her new book, "Intimacy Across Borders: Race, Religion and Migration in the U.S. Midwest"(Temple University Press).

Juffer employs personal narrative, ethnography and sociopolitical critique to show how migration to rural areas can transform schools, churches and businesses, and shows how migration and face-to-face encounters can also disrupt even the most entrenched religious beliefs in these communities.

However, they also can generate hatred in some places, especially economically depressed ones – as illustrated by an increasing number of hate crimes against Latinos and the passage of many anti-immigrant ordinances. The migration of Latinos to new areas of the United States threatens certain groups, Juffer asserts, because it creates the potential for new kinds of families – for example, families of mixed race or mixed legal status – that challenge a conservative definition of community based on the racially homogeneous, coupled family.

A larger analysis of race, religion and globalization in the book considers the Dutch Reformed Church in communities in Iowa and in South Africa.

Juffer has a joint appointment with the Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program and teaches courses in cultural studies, Latino studies and feminist theory.

She is the author of “At Home with Pornography: Women, Sex and Everyday Life” (1998) and “Single Mother: The Emergence of the Domestic Intellectual” (2006), both published by New York University Press.