Rate My Professor Carlos Yebra Lopez

Carlos Yebra Lopez is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at California State University, Fullerton, within the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, specializing in linguistics. He began his tenure-track position in the 2024-25 academic year. Previously, he held a postdoctoral position in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London from September 2022. His extensive academic background includes a Ph.D. and MPhil in Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures from New York University, a Postgraduate Diploma in Translation Studies from the University of Portsmouth, an M.A. in Philosophy from Birkbeck, University of London, an M.A. in Education, and a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Zaragoza, Spain.

Yebra Lopez's research focuses on critical sociolinguistics, language ideologies, (hyper)polyglossia, revitalization of endangered languages like Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), the Global Hispanophone, and digital humanities. He advises the Languages Program at CSUF and has guided student research, including the development of an AI chatbot named 'Estreya Perez' to aid in preserving the Ladino language. In 2024, he authored 'Ladino on the Internet: Sepharad 4,' published by Taylor & Francis, marking the first critical and systematic English-language study of Ladino's online revitalization—a language historically spoken by Sephardic Jews expelled from Iberia in 1492. Also in 2024, Routledge released 'Critical Polyglot Studies,' which he co-edited. His forthcoming 2025 book, 'Understanding Spanish Jihadist Terrorism: The Ideology Behind the Metaphors,' examines ideological metaphors in Spanish jihadist contexts.

Among his other publications are 'Decolonizing Spanish: Ladino and Chavacano as Sites of Global Hispanophonia' (2022), 'The Digital (De)territorialization of Ladino in the Twenty-First Century' (2021), 'Islamophobia, Orientalism and “Jihadist Radicalisation” in the TV Series El Príncipe (2014–2016)' (2023), 'Specters of Judeo-Spanish: The Case for Judeo-Spanish as a Partial Overlap of Idiolects Shared by People of Sephardi Culture' (2023), and 'A Simplified Guide to Reading and Writing Ladino in Rashi and Solitreo' (2023). Additional chapters address topics such as medievalist passports for descendants of Iberian Jews and Muslims, and analyses of the 2004 Madrid and 2017 Barcelona attacks. Yebra Lopez's scholarship bridges linguistics, cultural studies, and critical terrorism studies, contributing to the understanding of language in endangered communities and contemporary ideological discourses.