Biography
Sheila Marie Contreras is Associate Professor of English at Michigan State University, where she has previously served as Director of Chicano/Latino Studies in the College of Social Sciences and Associate Dean of DEI and Curriculum in the College of Arts & Letters. Her scholarship includes Blood Lines: Myth, Indigenism and Chicana/o Literature (U of Texas Press, 2008) and essays in Latinx Literatures in Transition, 1848-1982, Teaching Late-Twentieth-Century Mexicana and Chicana Writers (MLA, 2020) and Sociology of Race & Ethnicity (2019). Professor Contreras’ essay, “The Spanish-Indian Binary and Anti-Blackness as Literary Inheritance” was recently published in the volume Latinx Literatures in Transition, 1848-1992 (Cambridge University Press, 2025). Her current research and writing is focused on curriculum and Latinx student achievement and experience.
Profa Contreras entered higher education as a first-generation college student and began her journey to the PhD in the community college system of South Texas. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in English from Purdue University, and her Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in English from The University of Texas at Austin.
A resident of Lansing, she is active in neighborhood issues involving urban environmental justice and K12 library advocacy.
Works
BOOK: Blood Lines: Myth, Indigenism and Chicana/o Literature. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2008.
RECENT ESSAYS:
Contreras, Sheila Marie. “The Spanish-Indian Binary and Anti-Blackness as Literary Inheritance.” Latinx Literatures in Transition. 1848-1982. Edited by Marisa Lopez and Jonathan Alba Cutler. Cambridge, 2025.
Contreras, Sheila Marie. “Domestication and resistance in the Short Fiction of Alma Luz Villanueva and Helena Maria Viramontes.” Teaching the Narratives of Mexicana and Chicana Writers. Ed. Elizabeth Coonrod Martinez. Modern Language Association, 2021. (Print volume issued December 2020)
Ayala, María Isabel and Sheila Marie Contreras. “It’s Capital! Understanding Latina/o Student Presence in Higher Education.” Sociology of Race & Ethnicity. Vol. 5, No. 2, April 2019, pp. 228-243.
Contreras, Sheila M. “Chicana, Chicano, Chican@, Chicanx.” Keywords for Latina/o Studies. Albany: New York UP, 2017. 32-35.
EDITORIALS/OPINION:
Contreras, Sheila Marie. “No More Power Plants in Poor Neighborhoods.” Lansing City Pulse May 7, 2026.
—. “Preserve MLK Jr. Blvd as Sign of Respect for Civil Rights Leader.” Lansing State Journal January 19, 2025.
—. “Designing Schools without Libraries Restricts Students’ autonomy, freedom.” Lansing State Journal July 3, 2024.
College of Arts & Letters News
- English Professor Honored for Equity, Social Justice, and Community Engagement Work
College of Arts & Letters
August 30, 2024Assistant Professor Leonora Souza Paula is being recognized for her gender equity and social justice work as the 2024 recipient of the Inspiration Award for Community Engagement. This award, which is sponsored by the Center for Gender in Global Context (GenCen), recognizes […] Read Now →
- NEA Big Read Program Kicks Off at MSU March 15
College of Arts & Letters
March 13, 2018The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Big Read kicks off its month-long programming in the Greater Lansing/Mid-Michigan area on Thursday, March 15, at 7 p.m. in the Green Room of MSU’s Main Library with a screening of What Happens to a Dream Deferred. This short film […] Read Now →
- MSU Professor Receives NEA Big Read Grant
College of Arts & Letters
January 10, 2018Michigan State University Associate Professor of English Sheila Contreras, in partnership with Capital Area District Libraries, was awarded a $14,000 grant to host the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Big Read in the Greater Lansing/Mid-Michigan area. An initiative of the […] Read Now →
- Reaching Out to the Latino Community
College of Arts & Letters
April 21, 2016An artist of the spoken word, David Gonzalez, a nationally acclaimed storyteller and performer, spent a week in residence at Michigan State University. With support from the College of Arts & Letters, he inspired community members from ages 4 to 94 to tell their stories […] Read Now →
- Women of Color Initiatives Lecture: Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs
College of Arts & Letters
February 12, 2016Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs will be visiting MSU on Friday, February 12, 2015, and will be giving a talk at 3:00 in B342 Wells titled “Visionary Daughtering: An Intimate Intellectual and Activist Archive.” “This interactive lecture will activate the concept of Visionary […] Read Now →
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