Kristina Wirtz
Western Michigan University
1903 W Michigan Ave
Kalamazoo MI 49008-5338 USA
- Ph.D., Linguistic and Cultural Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, 2003
- Linguistic and sociocultural anthropology: history, methods and theory; African Diaspora, Caribbean, Latin America and the United States
- Semiotics and discourse analysis: language and identity, ritual and performance, language ideologies and metacommunicative awareness, bilingualism, language learning and socialization, linguistic marginalization, temporality, enregisterment
- Race and racialization: processual and historical approaches, anthropology of history and memory, critical race theory, African diaspora, performativity, embodiment.
Dr. Kristina Wirtz is a linguistic and cultural anthropologist in the Department of Spanish at Western Michigan University. She has done ethnographic research on race and religion in Cuba and bilingual education in the U.S. and has additional research interests in the intersection of ritual aesthetics and art in the African diaspora and in local environmental discourse in the Kalamazoo River watershed. Wirtz has published two books:
- Ritual, Discourse and Community in Cuban Santería (University of Florida Press, 2007; reissued 2025)
- Performing Afro-Cuba: Image, Voice, Spectacle in the Making of Race and History (University of Chicago Press, 2014; winner of 2015 Edward Sapir Prize from the Society for Linguistic Anthropology).
Some recent and forthcoming publications include:
- “Scaling the Value of Multilingualism: ‘Common-sense’ narratives of growth and inequality in an expert report to the U.S. Congress,” Discourse Studies 27(2) (2025): 289-310.
- “The chronotopic and sonotopic work of ritual,” in Oxford Handbook of Ritual Language (2024), pp. 61-82.
- "Asymmetrical listening practices and hegemonic aurality in a dual-language kindergarten classroom," Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 34(2) (2024): 174-199.
- "Afterlives, remains, and traces: Theorizing presence," co-authored with Solimar Otero, Journal of Africana Religions 12(2) (2024): 199-222.
- “Juramentos and Firmas: Narrating Assemblages in Afro-Cuban Religions,” co-authored with Solimar Otero, Narrative Culture 11(1) (2024): 51-75.
- in press: "The dynamic figuration of learning: Interaction ritual and student socialization in elementary school" In The Total Linguistic Fact, C. Nakassis, N. Harkness, L. Fleming, eds., University of Toronto Press.
- in press: “Vititi: The gift of sight," for Esoteric Inhumanisms, R. Sheldon, N. Snaza, T. Given, eds. Duke University Press.
- in press: “Soundscapes of the river,” for Teaching the Rust Belt, co-edited by K. Trostell and V. Zullo, Rutgers University Press.
Wirtz enjoys teaching courses in Anthropology and Spanish about linguistic and environmental anthropology and the theory and methods of semiotics, discourse analysis and ethnography, as well as about language, history, and culture in the Caribbean, Latin America, and the African Diaspora. She gives special emphasis to teaching students to read academic work, engage in research, and improve their writing.