Valérie Loichot

Valérie Loichot serves as the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of French and English at Emory University, where she chairs the Department of French and Italian and holds a core affiliation with Comparative Literature. Her academic home resides within Emory College of Arts and Sciences.

Loichot's research spans Caribbean literature, postcolonial theory, and decolonial studies with specific expertise in culinary narratives, climate change impacts on island cultures, and transnational connections between the Caribbean and U.S. South. Her methodological approaches integrate ecocriticism, creolization theory, and feminist frameworks to analyze cultural production across the Americas.

Her publication trajectory reveals a sustained focus on Caribbean cultural resistance, evolving from plantation legacies in her 2007 work through culinary sovereignty in her award-winning 2013 monograph to contemporary climate trauma in her 2020 study of hurricane narratives. This progression demonstrates increasing engagement with urgent ecological crises while maintaining foundational commitments to postcolonial critique.

Award Highlights:

• MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Studies (2015)
• Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award
• Eleanor Main Graduate Mentor Award

Loichot actively mentors graduate students as evidenced by her Eleanor Main Graduate Mentor Award, and maintains scholarly leadership through over forty peer-reviewed publications across major journals including Callaloo, Small Axe, and Mississippi Quarterly. She currently develops two book projects examining climate responses in Caribbean art and decolonial historiography of the Algerian War.

As a founding member of the Tout-Monde Art Foundation, she bridges academic research with community engagement through initiatives promoting Caribbean cultural production and decolonial practices.