Juan Rafael Valdez

Bio

Juan R. Valdez teaches all levels of Spanish and is also a scholar. Until recently his research has focused on the politics of language, paying special attention to the interplay of language and race in the construction of identity and struggles for power in the Hispanic Caribbean and the US. His book, Tracing Dominican identity: the writings of Pedro Henríquez Ureña (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), was also edited in Spanish and published in Argentina by Ediciones Katatay as En busca de la identidad: la obra de Pedro Henríquez Ureña (2015). He has taught seminars as a Visiting Scholar in Germany and Cuba. He enjoys teaching very much and has taught Spanish, Hispanic sociolinguistics, educational and cultural linguistics from a critical perspective throughout the US. He’s currently working on a book of essays that explore how our notions of politics, race, and nature impact our sense of place and being in the world. He also enjoys collaborating with scholars, artists, and activists across different interdisciplinary fields and across the globe.

Academic Appointments

• Lecturer, Stanford Language Center