Mir Yarfitz has lived in each of the four corners of the US as well as South and Central America. His enthusiasm for Latin America grew from his college study abroad experience in Nicaragua, a Fulbright in Argentina, and work with migrant farmworker labor unions in Washington, Oregon, and Georgia. His teaching and research interests include Latin American cultural production, social movements, dictatorships and resistance, racial hierarchies, migration, gender, sexuality, masculinity, and transgender studies. His current research explores what might fruitfully be framed as trans lives in Argentina from 1900 to 1945, as part of the larger development of archivally-based trans studies. His 2019 Rutgers University Press book Impure Migrations: Jews and Sex Work in Golden Age Argentina, historicizes immigrant Ashkenazi Jews in organized prostitution in Buenos Aires between the 1890s and 1930s and in broader transnational flows of sex workers and moral opposition. In addition to publishing in the fields of Latin American trans studies, sex work history, and Jewish studies, he has written collaboratively with a team of Wake Forest Librarians about their experiences in cooperative pedagogy and ungrading, including creating a zine together about the books (and zines) their students have written. He is a 2023 Kulynych Family Omicron Delta Kappa Award winner, selected by students for bridging “the gap between the classroom and student life.”
Background
Education
Ph.D., 2012 Department of History UCLA
M.A., 2007 Department of History UCLA
B.A., 2000 International and Comparative Policy Studies Reed College
Academic Appointments
Wake Forest University Department of History:
Associate Professor, 2019-present
Assistant Professor, 2013-2019
Published
2019
Impure Migration: Jews and Sex Work in Golden Age Argentina. Rutgers University Press, March 2019.
In Preparation
In prep.
Book manuscript, “Dangerous Crossings: Trans Popular Narratives and Transnational Sexology in Argentina, 1900-1930s.”
In press
“Trans and Travesti History in South America.” Co-authored with Marce Butierrez. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. In production (post-peer review).
In press
“In the Ellipsis: La Bella Otero’s Unspeakable Anality and the Pleasures of Sexual Inversion.” For special issue of Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies. In production (post-peer review).
2023
“Jewish Prostitution (Argentina, 1890s-1920s).” In Jews Across the Americas, 1492- Present: Learning and Teaching Jewish American History. Edited by Adriana Brodsky and Laura Leibman. NYU Press.
2023
“The ‘Serious Marica’ and Male Concubines: Gender Transgression and Queer Intimacy in Argentine Police and Prison Records, 1921-1945.” Co-authored with Javier Fernandez Galeano. Hispanic American Historical Review. Forthcoming in October.
2023
“Making History Together: Reflections on Trust, Connection, and Finding Joy in the Archive.” Co-authored with Kyle Denlinger, Kathy Shields, and Megan Mulder. Pp. 305-404 in Exploring Inclusive and Equitable Pedagogies: Creating Space for All Learners. ARCL.
2020
“Marriage as Ruse or Migration Route: Jewish Women’s Mobility and Sex Trafficking to Argentina, 1890s-1930s.” Women in Judaism 17:1 (Fall 2020).
2021
“Developing an Open Primary Source Reader on Gender and Sexuality.” Co-authored with Kyle Denlinger, Kathy Shields, and Megan Mulder. In Engaging Undergraduates in Primary Source Research, edited by Lijuan Xu. Rowman and Littlefield.
2023
Keynote: “Bad Jews: Bad for the Jews?” Sex Work and Jewish History Conference, Technical University Berlin, Center for Research on Antisemitism, April 23-25.
2023
“Maricas and Trans History in Argentine Police Records,” co-authored with Javier Fernandez Galeano, Cuiring the Américas: (Dis)organizing the Body in Contemporary Latin America Hybrid Multilingual Conference, University of Cambridge, UK, May 27.
2022
“Voces trans que atraviesan los silencios: Expedientes policiales de Rosario (Argentina), parodia y femininidad a principios de siglo XX,” IV Congreso Queer La Laguna, Canary Islands, November 9.
2022
“Annals of Anality: Finding Holes in the Archives,” Queer History Month, November 7.
2022
“When Jews Ran the Brothels of Buenos Aires: Ashkenazi Immigrants and Organized Sex Work in Argentina, 1890s-1930,” Annual Wexler Lecture on Jewish History, DC JCC, October 20.
2022
“Bonbons and Velvet Slippers: The Radical Friendship of The Bourbon Princess and La Bella Otero,” on panel “Capturing Transgender Histories through Archives, Representation, and Activism,” American Historical Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, January 7.
2021
“Radical Trust: Meaningful Collaborations between Librarians and Faculty” at the North Carolina Library Association Biennial Conference, October 20.
2021
“Growth and Leadership” invited panel participant with President Susan Wente, President’s Leadership Conference, WFU, Sept. 25.
2021
“Messy and Proud of It: Open Pedagogy with History Undergraduates,” at the Open Education Southern Symposium, July 15.
2021
“Bad Jews and the Brothels of Buenos Aires: Transnational Sex Work and Immigrant Organization, 1890-1930,” at the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, April 15.
