Noël Valis, a leading scholar and translator of Spanish literature, was recently appointed the Kingman Brewster, Jr. (B.A. 1941) Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, effective immediately.
She is a member of Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and is affiliated with the Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Humanities Program.
Valis’ award-winning work reflects her interdisciplinary focus on the literature, culture, and history of modern Spain, Hispanic women’s and gender studies, and the study of cultural icons. Her most recent book, “Lorca After Life” (Yale University Press, 2022), a meditation on Federico García Lorca’s life, death and fame received the 2023 PROSE Award in the Literature category for its extraordinary merit and significant contribution to a field of study. Reviewers hailed it as “a major landmark” and “an original, indispensable, and seminal contribution.” In “Sacred Realism: Religion and the Imagination in Modern Spanish Narrative” (Yale University Press, 2010), Valis re-examines the role of Catholicism in the modern Spanish novel. Reviewers have called it her “magnum opus (to date),” “an instant classic,” “innovative,” and “remarkable,” challenging readers’ assumptions and the prevailing view of religion. Her translation of the poetry of Argentine poet Noni Benegas, “Burning Cartography” (Host Publications, 2007), was awarded the Best Book Translation Prize from the New England Council of Latin American Studies, and her book “The Culture of Cursilería: Bad Taste, Kitsch, and Class in Modern Spain” (Duke University Press, 2002) won the Modern Language Association of America’s Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize. “The Culture of Cursilería” upended the artificial divisions between low and high culture within Hispanic studies and resituated what was marginal (bad taste, lo cursi, women, Andalusian culture, Spain itself) from the periphery to the center of attention. Reviewers have called the book “seminal,” “pioneering,” and “visionary.”
Her edited volume, “Teaching Representations of the Spanish Civil War” (Modern Language Association of America, 2007), explores the interdisciplinary, multigeneric opportunities present in the Spanish Civil War’s aesthetic and cultural output. She also edited Pedro Badanelli’s “Serenata del amor triunfante” and co-translated “Two Confessions,” essays by Rosa Chacel and María Zambrano. Earlier books include “The Decadent Vision in Leopoldo Alas” (Louisiana State University Press, 1981), “The Novels of Jacinto Octavio Picón” (Bucknell University Press, 1986), and the co-edited volume “In the Feminine Mode: Essays on Hispanic Women Writers” (Bucknell University Press, 1990). Her 150-plus articles and essays have appeared in peer-reviewed journals and books, including Humanitas, , The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Novel: from 1600 to the Present, Novel, , Modern Language Notes, the Yale Review, and the PMLA, the journal of the Modern Language Association of America.
Throughout her career, Valis has received numerous honors. Her work in women’s and gender studies was recognized with the Victoria Urbano Academic Achievement Prize. A Corresponding Member of the Royal Spanish Academy, a full member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language, the American Academy of Sciences and Letters, and past member of the National Endowment for the Humanities’ (NEH) National Council on the Humanities, she is also the recipient of Fulbright, Guggenheim, and NEH/National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships. She served as president of the Asociación Internacional de Galdosistas/International Association of Galdós Scholars in 2021-23. She has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Emory University, Bryn Mawr College, New York University, delivered special seminars at Duke University, Brigham Young University, the CUNY Graduate Center, and the Universidad de Navarra, as well as a broad array of plenary and keynote addresses in the U.S. and abroad.
A member of the Yale faculty since 1999, her courses include “The Spanish Civil War: Words and Images,” “Federico García Lorca: Poetry and Plays,” “Women Writers of Spain,” “The Specter of Poetry,” as well as DS: Literature in the Directed Studies Program. Her teaching has been recognized with the Sandy Beaver Teaching Award, Outstanding Honors Professor Award, and an Oraculum Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has directed numerous dissertations and senior theses over her quarter-century at Yale. In addition to serving as Director of Undergraduate Studies and the Director of Graduate Studies, she has served on the Undergraduate Studies Committee, the Yale College Fulbright Committee, the Humanities Tenure and Appointments Committee, and the Yale College Executive Committee, among others.
Valis earned her M.A. and Ph.D. at Bryn Mawr College, and her B.A. at Douglass College (Rutgers University).
