Dr. Isabel Machado is a Lecturer at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice (GRSJ). A cultural historian whose work often crosses national and disciplinary boundaries, she specializes in the fields of Gender and Sexuality Studies and Festive Studies. Her first book, Carnival in Alabama: Marked Bodies and Invented Traditions in Mobile (University Press of Mississippi, 2023), uses Mardi Gras as a vehicle to understand social and cultural changes in Mobile, Alabama (USA) in the second half of the 20th century. By exposing the systems of oppression reflected in and reinforced by the celebration, while also acknowledging the festivity’s potential in reaffirming resistance and joy for historically marginalized groups of people, it dialogues with scholarship that focuses on joyful defiance, or Critical Joy Studies.

For the ongoing oral history project, “Queens of the South(s)”, she is interviewing performers who defy gender normativity in different parts of the globe while supporting efforts to create accessible queer community archives in collaboration with local artists, activists, and archivists.

Her work has been published in Study the South, Oral History, O Olho da História, and Journal of Festive Studies (where she currently serves as co-editor-in-chief). She is also a host for the New Books in Gender Studies podcast.