Dr. Bárbara Xavier França is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Virginia Military Institute. She holds a Master of Arts and a Ph.D. in Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures from Tulane University, New Orleans, LA. Her research discusses the role of chemically induced altered states of consciousness in Latin American fiction and reflects on the tensions between pharmacology and coloniality displayed in contemporary literature. She also earned a Master of Arts degree in Social Communication, specializing in Image Pragmatics (Film Studies), from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Communication/Journalism from the same institution. 

Dr. Xavier França has taught Spanish language and literature at Tulane University and Washington and Lee University. She has also taught courses on the introduction to academic research and narratives in UFMG’s Department of Social Communication, as well as in the Faculty of Languages, Literature, and Linguistics, and has served as a news reporter for Sempre Editora (O Tempo and Pampulha newspapers) in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. 

She has published academic works on contemporary Argentinean, Chilean, and Colombian novels, Peruvian and Paraguayan films, and Brazilian documentaries, prose, and poetry. Moreover, Dr. Xavier França has conducted fieldwork in Spain, Mexico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba, and has presented papers at comparative literature, cultural studies, and modern languages conferences in Brazil, the United States, Spain, Canada, Colombia, and Greece.