dr. S.A. de Laforcade (Sonia)

Sonia de Laforcade is Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art. Her research and teaching concern practices of critique and pedagogy in contemporary art and beyond, with an emphasis on Latin America and the Global South.

Her current book project examines the critical, pedagogical, curatorial, and artistic work of the art critic Frederico Morais in 1970s Brazil. One of the major aims of this book is to rethink the history of art history and criticism through unclassifiable critical practices that emerged at a remove from the discipline’s institutional centers. The book is based on her dissertation, which won the 2021 Jane Faggen Ph.D. Dissertation Prize. Her more recent research expands on her interest in contemporary artists’ experimentation with writing.

Her research has been supported by a yearlong residential postdoctoral fellowship at the Getty Research Institute, and by travel and writing grants from the Program in Latin American Studies and Program for International and Regional Studies at Princeton University. Previously, she was Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Oregon. She earned her PhD at Princeton University.