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John Petrus received his PhD from Ohio State University in 2015. His research is centered around questions of sexual and racial difference in Latinx and Latin American audio-visual media and life narratives. His primary focus is US Latine/x creative works on experiences of the HIV/AIDS crisis. His current research project, "Understanding HIV/AIDS Through US Latine/x Literature" compiles a corpus of US Latine/x narrative works and theorizes how engaging Latinx HIV/AIDS writing can help students and readers grapple with systemic injustices of the recent past and compare them with contemporary injustices with respect to global health, identities and sexualities, history and memory, and structural racism. 

Recent Publications:

“Monstrous Beauty: The Alternative Aesthetic of Difference in Emil Ferris’ My Favorite Thing Is Monsters.” Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society, vol. 7, no. 3, 2023, pp. 238–56,

"Discussing The Undiscussable: Reflecting on the ‘End’ of AIDS.” GLQ, vol. 25, no. 1, 2019, pp. 67–72, .

Recent Conference Presentations:

"Finding joy, seeking justice in Latinx HIV/AIDS writing” Latine/x Studies Association 2024 Annual Conference

“Questioning the Past, Questing for Survival: Cristy Road’s Punk Queer Latinx Life Narratives” The 2^nd Annual Conference of the Comics Studies Society, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada.