Faculty Profile

Ph.D., M.A., Emory University
M.A., University of Siena, Italy
B.A., University Orientale, Naples, Italy

Dr. Anastasia Valecce was born and raised in Southern Italy and earned her undergraduate degree from Università l’Orientale in Naples in foreign language and literature with a double major in Spanish and English and a minor in Portuguese. Following her graduation, she moved to Siena, Italy, to pursue a master’s in literary translation and text editing from Spanish to Italian. She worked for a publishing house in Italy, where she published several Latin American novels as translator and editor. In 2006, she collaborated with the Italian department at Emory University teaching Italian culture and working as art director in a documentary film about Southern Italian dance cultures.

She joined Spelman College in 2012, and since 2013 Dr. Valecce has served as an assistant professor of Spanish (Hispanic studies) in the Department of World Languages and Literature. She very much enjoys being a part of the Spelman community.

Her research interests include contemporary Caribbean studies with a special focus on Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, film, literature, performance, queer and gender studies, visual culture, and pop culture.

Dr. Valecce presents her work in domestic and international specialized conferences every year. She has been invited as a guest speaker at local institutions such as Morehouse College, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, University of West Georgia, and University of Puerto Rico (Carolina), as well as internationally as at the Universidad La Salle in Bogotá, Colombia. At these institutions, Dr. Valecce presented her latest works on a feminist reading of the work of Martinican philosopher Frantz Fanon, on visual arts in Puerto Rico, on questions of representation of race and gender in contemporary Dominican cinema, and on the contemporary situation of the Internet in Cuba.

Her book titled Neorrealismo y cine en Cuba: historia y discurso entorno a la primera polémica de la revolución (1951-1962) [Neorealism and Cinema in Cuba: History and Discourse on the First Polemic of the Revolution (1951-1962)] examines the aesthetic history, the relations, and the polemics around the revolutionary Cuban film production, its transnational contacts, and retraces the dynamics behind the formation of the revolutionary ideology in Cuba. This book is forthcoming with Purdue University Press.

Her latest works include an article on murals and urban space in Puerto Rico published by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (2017), an article on a short queer Puerto Rican documentary published by CENTRO Journal (2018), and a forthcoming article on the internet, control, and digital conflict in Cuba with University of Florida Press.

Dr. Valecce is truly passionate about traveling to the Caribbean for her research and about sharing her findings with Spelman students by designing exciting courses!

SPA 101-102
SPA 201-202-222
SPA 303 – 306- 307
SPA 309-310
SPA 350
SPA 434
SPA 478
ADW 111-112
FYC/IBQC

Contemporary Caribbean Studies with a special focus on Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic with a focus on film, literature, performance, queer and gender studies, visual culture, and pop culture.

Her book titled Neorrealismo y cine en Cuba: historia y discurso entorno a la primera polémica de la revolución (1951-1962) [Neorealism and Cinema in Cuba: History and Discourse on the First Polemic of the Revolution (1951-1962)] examines the aesthetic history, the relations, and the polemics around the revolutionary Cuban film production, its transnational contacts, and retraces the dynamics behind the formation of the revolutionary ideology in Cuba. This book is forthcoming with Purdue University Press.

Her latest works include an article on murals and urban space in Puerto Rico published by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (2017), an article on a short queer Puerto Rican documentary published by CENTRO Journal (2018), and a forthcoming article on the internet, control, and digital conflict in Cuba with University of Florida Press.