Mathew Sandoval

Personal Website

Mathew Sandoval is an award-winning Teaching Professor at Barrett, The Honors College in Downtown Phoenix, where he also serves as Dean's Fellow for Access & Inclusive Excellence. He's an Affiliate Faculty with ASU's Hispanic Research Center and Latinx Oral History Lab, and a proud member of ASU's Chicano/Latino Faculty & Staff Association.  

Sandoval's scholarship focuses on Mexican and Chicano art & culture. He’s a National Endowment for the Humanities “Public Scholar”, and his work has been featured on PBS, NBC Today Show, NPR, Washington Post, LA Times, and Arizona Republic. His scholarship has been published in numerous books, journals, magazines, and news outlets. His research currently focuses on the transborder holiday Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). He focuses on the holiday's 20th and 21st century history as it has circulated in mass media, art exhibitions, tourism and cinema. He also conducts ethnographic research on large-scale public celebrations of the holiday in Mexico and the US Southwest. Furthermore, he writes about the way Day of the Dead intersects with his experiences as a working-class mixed-race Chicano. 

Sandoval teaches Barrett's core seminar The Human Event.  Additonally, he teaches a variety of upper-division seminars. These have included: Urban Arts & Cultures; Race and Performance; Cultural Theory and Pop Culture; Performing the Self; Disney Films & Cultural Theory, Radical Activism in Theory and Practice; 21st Century Documentary Film; and Urban Poverty, Race, and Art.  He also directs Barrett's New York City summer travel program "Culture and Performance in the Global City," and operates Barrett’s Spain-Morocco summer abroad program "Crossroads of Civilization."

In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Sandoval enjoys a professional career in the arts. He's toured throughout the US, Latin America, and the UK as a performance artist, storyteller, poet, and dancer.  He's also worked as a cultural consultant and collaborator with Gammage Theatre, Phoenix Art Museum, Mesa Arts Center, Ballet Arizona, and Arizona Theatre Company.