Héctor M. Varela Rios

Héctor M. Varela Rios, PhD, is the Raquel and Alfonso Martínez-Fonts Endowed Assistant Professor in Latin American Studies. His work is primarily in Latinx theology; constructive theologies; religions and materiality/material culture; and theories of religion. He received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez. Dr. Varela Rios obtained his MA in Religion at the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico and MA in Divinity from the University of Chicago. He continued his studies at the University of Chicago where he earned his PhD in Theology.

Dr. Varela Rios’s work is published in numerous in scholarly articles, including “Sancochando Theological Anthropology: One Puerto Rican Heavy Soup as Heuristic” in Perspectivas: Journal of the Hispanic Theological Initiative (2018) and "Using Latinx Theology's Lo Cotidiano to Decolonialize Oller's El Velorio" in the Journal for Religion, Film and Media (2021). His other publications include “‘Depicting Heavenly Reality’: Non-Textual Objects as Inscriptions of Belief” in the Journal of Religious & Theological Information (2022) and “Thing” in the Critical Theory for Political Theology: Keywords, Political Theology Network (2022). Dr. Varela Rios is also the author of the essay “In Defense of Latinx: A Theological Microintervention” in the book Why Can’t We Wait: Racism and the Church (2022).

Dr. Varela Rios has presented his research at multiple conferences in the U.S. and abroad. Most recently, he discussed “In Defense of ‘Latinx’: Linguistic Mestizaje/Mulatez as a Theological Microintervention” at the College Theology Society Conference online in June 2022 and “No holiness like decolonial holiness: an ecclesiological conversation of REHACE and its responses to catastrophe and social justice” at the Ecclesiological Investigations Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico in June 2022.