Valérie Benoist

Valérie Benoist is a Professor in the Department of Spanish and affiliated with the Latin American Studies (LAS) Concentration at Grinnell College. She specializes in colonial Latin American literature and teaches courses in Spanish language, culture, and literature, as well as an English-taught Introduction to Latin American Studies.

Her research focuses on gender and race construction in colonial texts, with particular attention to nuns’ writings, indigenous historiographies, and the representation of blackness in early modern literature. She is currently investigating religious exemplarity and sanctity in biographies of Afro-Spanish and Afro-Latin American nuns.

Her work has been published in respected journals including Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl, Afro-Hispanic Review, Latin American Theater Review, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, Letras Femeninas, and Moenia. While specific publication titles are not listed, the thematic focus across her scholarship reveals a consistent engagement with marginalized voices, postcolonial identity, and religious discourse in the colonial Spanish-speaking world.

There are no listed scientific awards or honors in the provided text.

She advises students in the Spanish and LAS programs, though no named advisees are mentioned. There is no information about grant funding or research teams. She is actively teaching and researching, with no indication of part-time status or retirement.