Xenia Reloba
de la Cruz

Media scholar, editor and educator. I study how feminist movements in Latin America use digital media to claim citizenship, and how those spaces are now being contested.

Ph.D., Communication and Media Studies: University of Calgary, completed July 2026
Currently teaching: University of Calgary and Mount Royal University

University of Calgary profile Google Scholar

Research

Feminist digital citizenship

How Latin American feminists build collective identity and action frames against gender-based violence online, and how users respond.

Digital media in Cuba

How digital media, before and after the arrival of the internet in Cuba, opened alternative spaces for information and activism.

Project in development

Platforms, misogyny and AI

Alternative digital spaces, built with feminist activists.

Project in development

Teaching and learning

Students as co-creators of course content.

Education

2026 (conferral: November 2026)

Ph.D., Communication and Media Studies

University of Calgary

Dissertation: Keeping up with the tide: An examination of Latin American feminist digital practices on GBV and femicides
2019

M.A., Cultural Studies

Queen's University

Thesis: How to stay connected in an "offline" country? Stories of Cubans' internet experience
1994

B.A., Journalism

University of Havana
2022–2023

Certificate in University Teaching and Learning

Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, University of Calgary

Publications

Articles and book chapters

Reloba de la Cruz, X. (2021). Una dilatada bienvenida a la "normalidad": Prácticas online en Cuba [A belated welcome to "normality": Online practices in Cuba]. Cuadernos del Sur Letras, (50), 32–57.
Read the article
Reloba de la Cruz, X. (2014). "Politics don't fit in a sugar bowl": Cuba in the 1990s through the music of Varela. In M. C. Cumaná, K. Dubinsky, & X. Reloba de la Cruz (Eds.), My Havana: The musical city of Carlos Varela (pp. 35–51). University of Toronto Press.
View the chapter

Edited volumes

Cumaná, M. C., Dubinsky, K., & Reloba de la Cruz, X. (Eds.). (2014). My Havana: The musical city of Carlos Varela. University of Toronto Press.
Dubinsky, K., Cumaná, M. C., & Reloba de la Cruz, X. (Eds.). (2013). Habáname: La ciudad musical de Carlos Varela. Ediciones La Memoria.
Reloba de la Cruz, X. (Ed.). (2015). Materiales de la revista "Casa de las Américas" de/sobre Mario Benedetti. Fondo Editorial Casa de las Américas.
Fernández Retamar, R., & Reloba de la Cruz, X. (Eds.). (2014). Materiales de la revista "Casa de las Américas" de/sobre Julio Cortázar. Fondo Editorial Casa de las Américas.
Medina Llanusa, C., & Reloba de la Cruz, X. (Eds.). (2015). Memorias: A guitarra limpia (Vol. 2). Centro Cultural Pablo de la Torriente Brau.
Reloba de la Cruz, X. (Ed.). (2012). Memorias: Arte digital. Centro Cultural Pablo de la Torriente Brau.
Casaus, V., & Reloba de la Cruz, X. (Eds.). (2008). Para María, compañera. Centro Cultural Pablo de la Torriente Brau.

Media practice and public scholarship

For more than twenty years in Cuba I worked as a journalist and editor, making specialized knowledge readable, audible and open to debate. That practice continues in my academic work.

Cover of Casa de las Américas — Casa de las Américas, no. 282

Cover of Casa de las Américas no. 269 — Casa de las Américas, no. 269, with my note "La orquesta imposible"

Editorial team of Casa de las Américas, listing Xenia Reloba as editora-redactora — The journal's editorial team as listed in each issue. As editor (editora-redactora), I organized each issue and produced special notes and sections for it.

Sections of the issues I edited (2010–2017) can be read and downloaded on Dialnet.

Podcast

Three Questions about Teaching and Learning (2023–2024), Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, hosted by Dr. Derritt Mason. Research assistant and student producer of ten episodes on the challenges instructors faced during COVID-19: compassionate grading, care and self-care, and advocacy for social justice.

Listen to the podcast

Public events

2022–2023. Public Humanities Fellowship, Calgary Institute for the Humanities.
2015. Moderator, "Our roots and traditions as market opportunities," AM/PM: América por su música, Fábrica de Arte Cubano, Havana.
2015. Interviewee, The Poet of Havana (dir. Ron Chapman), documentary on Carlos Varela.
2013 and 2014. Speaker and panelist, Antofagasta International Book Fair, Chile.
2013. Co-organizer, III Taller "Gestión cultural: comunicación y periodismo," Casa de las Américas.
2010. Moderator, "Art, cultural action and spaces of counterhegemonic resistance," with Calle 13, Casa Tomada, Casa de las Américas.
2009. Guest speaker, Caracas International Book Fair, Venezuela.

Editorial work and teaching

Editorial roles

Editor, Casa de las Américas
Quarterly journal on literature, culture and critical thought, Havana, 2010–2017
Chief editor, Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano
Annual magazine of the Havana Film Festival, 2013–2020
Editor and content manager, Cuba Contemporánea
Independent outlet on contemporary Cuban society, 2013–2015
Editor, Temas
Quarterly journal of social sciences, 2015–2017
Director, Diario del Festival
Daily newspaper of the Havana Film Festival, 2005–2009
Journalist and editor, Prensa Latina
Editorial Vice-Presidency, 2000–2008

Courses taught

University of Calgary

COMS 371 Critical Media StudiesFall 2026
COMS 413 Advanced Research MethodsWinter 2025
COMS 201 Introduction to Communication and Media Studies (online)Summer 2023
COMS 401 Digital CitizenshipFall 2022
COMS 203 New MediaSpring 2022

Mount Royal University

COMM 3738 Research Methods2023–2026
COMM 3501 Intercultural Communication2024–2026
COMM 2501 Media History and Contemporary Issues2025–2026

Contact

For research collaboration, speaking invitations or general questions, send me a message and I will reply by email.

Xenia Relobade la Cruz