Peter Salovey President | Yale University
Peter Salovey President | Yale University
Noël Valis, a prominent scholar and translator of Spanish literature, has been appointed as the Kingman Brewster, Jr. Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University. This appointment is effective immediately.
Valis is part of Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She is also affiliated with the Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Humanities Program. Her work spans various disciplines focusing on modern Spain's literature, culture, history, Hispanic women’s studies, gender studies, and cultural icons.
Her recent book "Lorca After Life" received the 2023 PROSE Award in Literature for its significant contribution to scholarship. Reviewers described it as “a major landmark” and “an original, indispensable, and seminal contribution.” Another notable work by Valis is "Sacred Realism: Religion and the Imagination in Modern Spanish Narrative," which challenges conventional views on religion in Spanish novels. Reviewers have praised it as her “magnum opus (to date),” calling it “an instant classic,” “innovative,” and “remarkable.”
Valis' translation work includes Argentine poet Noni Benegas’ "Burning Cartography," which won the Best Book Translation Prize from the New England Council of Latin American Studies. Her book "The Culture of Cursilería: Bad Taste, Kitsch, and Class in Modern Spain" earned the Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize from the Modern Language Association of America for challenging established cultural hierarchies within Hispanic studies.
Her academic contributions include editing volumes such as "Teaching Representations of the Spanish Civil War" and translating works like Pedro Badanelli’s "Serenata del amor triunfante." She has published over 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals including Humanitas and The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Novel.
Throughout her career, Valis has been recognized with numerous honors including the Victoria Urbano Academic Achievement Prize. She holds memberships with prestigious academies such as the Royal Spanish Academy and has received fellowships from Fulbright, Guggenheim, among others.
Valis joined Yale's faculty in 1999 where she teaches courses like "The Spanish Civil War: Words and Images" and "Federico García Lorca: Poetry and Plays." Her teaching excellence has been acknowledged through awards like the Sandy Beaver Teaching Award.
Valis completed her M.A. and Ph.D. at Bryn Mawr College after earning her B.A. at Douglass College (Rutgers University).
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