- Assistant Professor
- Phone: (979) 845-8318
- Email: rmills@tamu.edu
- Office: LAAH 376
- Document: CV
- Transnational Literatures
- Race and Ethnicity Studies
- Contemporary
- Multi-Ethnic Literature
- African American and African Diaspora Literature
- Comics and Graphic Novels
- Game Studies
- Latina/Latino/Latinx
Biography
Regina Marie Mills, holder of the Elton Lewis Faculty Fellowship in Liberal Arts, is Assistant Professor of Latinx and U.S. Multi-Ethnic Literature in the Department of English and core faculty in the Latina/o and Mexican American Studies program. Her research focuses on Latinx, AfroLatinx, and African diaspora literature and media, particularly life writing studies, refugee literature, and critical game studies. Her first book, Invisibility and Influence: A Literary History of AfroLatinidades (University of Texas Press, 2024) was published as part of the “Latinx: The Future Is Now” series. Her research is published or forthcoming in journals and collections such as Latino Studies, The Black Scholar, Western Folklore, The Lion & the Unicorn, Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies, The Routledge Companion to Latinx Life Writing, and Latinx Literature and Critical Futurities, 1992-2020 (Cambridge UP), among others.
She is a first-generation college student and as a First Faculty Mentor, she encourages first-gen students to visit her office for cafecito y plática (coffee and a chat). She is the daughter of a Guatemalan immigrant and the eldest of seven children. She wishes her Spanish was better but loves to practice and improve. She is also an avid video game player. Dr. Mills believes in making scholarship accessible outside the classroom and has published commentary in The Conversation, The Constitutionalist, and The Eagle as well as appearing on KBTX’s “Focus at Four.” Her second book project, Gaming Latinidad: Latinx Narrative, Representation, and Experimentation in Games, looks to bring together scholarship in Latinx studies and critical game studies. Dr. Mills is a 2024-27 Arts & Humanities Fellows and was a 2023-24 Glasscock Faculty Fellow. Before becoming a professor, she was high school English teacher in Arizona, where she earned her M.Ed in secondary English Education. Her classes focus on class discussion, learning from failure (as games encourage us to do), and co-creating knowledge through classroom community. Her passion for teaching has been honored through the Montague-CTE Scholar Award.
Research Interests
- Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latinx Literature
- Life Writing Studies
- US-Central American and Refugee Literature
- Human Rights and Literary Studies
- Video Games as Literature
- Archives
Educational Background
- Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin, 2018
- M.A., The University of Texas at Austin, 2014
- M.Ed., Arizona State University, 2011
- B.A. Washington and Lee University, 2009
Selected Publications
Monographs
2024
Invisibility and Influence: A Literary History of AfroLatinidades (June 2024), University of Texas Press, in the series, “Latinx: The Future Is Now” (series editors, Lorgia García-Peña and Nicole Guidotti-Hernández): https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477329146/
· Reviewed in Latino Studies (vol. 22, 2, 2024), CHOICE (Feb 2025) review forthcoming in MELUS
Peer-Reviewed ArticlesForthcoming
Mills, Regina Marie. “Playing at Power and Powerlessness: Agency in Papo & Yo and Life Is Strange 2.” The Lion and the Unicorn, forthcoming in vol. 48, no. 1, January 2024.Mills, Regina Marie. “A Mother, A Daughter, and Earrings: An Autohistoria-Teoría of Guatemalan American Femininity.” Western Folklore, forthcoming in vol. 84, no. 1-2, 2025.
2022
Mills, Regina Marie. “A Post-Soul Spider-Man: The Remixed Heroics of Miles Morales.” The Black Scholar, vol. 52, no. 1, Spring 2022. pp. 41-52
Mills, Regina Marie. “Teaching Writing Now: Creative Close Readings,” Open Words: Access and English Studies, vol. 13, no. 1, December 2021. DOI: 10.37514/OPW-J.2021.13.1.07 (published within “Introduction to ‘Teaching Writing Across the English Department Curriculum: A Roundtable,’ by Matthew McKinney with Roundtable Participants, pp. 69-99).
2021
Mills, Regina Marie. “Beyond Resistance in Dominican American Women’s Fiction: Healing and Growth through the Spectrum of Quietude in Angie Cruz’s Soledad and Naima Coster’s Halsey Street.” Latino Studies, vol. 19, no. 1, March 2021, pp.70-91. Full-text available free here: https://rdcu.be/cfab5
Reprinted in Latino Studies: A 20th Anniversary Reader, edited by Marisa Alicea and Lourdes Torres (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)
2020
Mills, Regina Marie. “On The Tattooed Soldier and What We Carry in Migration.” Latinx Talk (March 16, 2020), special series on Latinx Migration Literature, which can be read here.
2018
Mills, Regina Marie. “Literary-Legal Representations: Statelessness and the Demands of Justice in Héctor Tobar’s The Tattooed Soldier.” Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures, vol. 2, no. 2, Spring 2018, pp. 96-117.
Special Issues
2024
Alain Lawo-Sukam, Regina Marie Mills, AJ Baginski, Ivylove Cudjoe, Alexis Hurtado-Montano, and George O. Villanueva, guest co-editors. “Landscapes of Belonging: Afro-Latinx Poetics.” Latin@ Literatures, 2024. lob.latinoliteratures.org/#
2022
Mills, Regina Marie and Masiki, Trent (Amherst College), guest co-editors. “Post-Soul Afro-Latinidades.” The Black Scholar, vol. 52, no. 1, Spring 2022.
Peer-Reviewed Book Chapters and Bibliography Entries
2025
Mills, Regina Marie. “Sideways Latinx Queerness in Young Adult Video Games: Life Is Strange 2 and Gone Home.” Atravesados: Essays on Queer Latinx Young Adult Literature, edited by Trevor Boffone and Cristina Herrera. University Press of Mississippi, 2025.
2024
Mills, Regina Marie. “Latinx Coming-of-Age Memoirs, 1961-2021.” The Routledge Handbook of Latinx Life Writing, edited by Christine Fernández and María Joaquina Villaseñor. Routledge, 2024.
2023
Mills, Regina Marie. “Border-crossing, Identity, and Voice in Central American and U.S.-Central American Refugee Narratives.” The Routledge Handbook of Refugee Narratives, edited by Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi and Vinh Nguyen. New York: Routledge, 2023, pp. 217-227. Available open-access by Taylor & Francis: http://bit.ly/3Ek5eAD.
Mills, Regina. “Latina/o/x Archives.” Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies, edited by Ilan Stavans. Oxford University Press, (posted January 13, 2023).
2022
Mills, Regina Marie. “Gaming Literature: Games as an Accessible Entry into the Study of Literature.” Teaching Games and Games Studies in the Literature Classroom, edited by Tison Pugh and Lynn Ramey. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022.
Forthcoming
Mills, Regina Marie. “Video Gaming Latinidad.” Latinx Literature and Critical Futurities, 1992-2020, edited by William Orchard. Third volume in the three-volume collection, “Latinx Literature in Transition,” under general editorship of Laura Lomas and John Morán González. Under contract with Cambridge University Press. Forthcoming, Spring 2025.
Mills, Regina Marie. “Is There Such Thing as a Latinx Game?” New Formations of Game Genre, edited by Gerald Voorhees, Josh Call, Betsy Brey, and Matthew Wysocki, Bloomsbury Academic. (awaiting proofs)