Vanessa Ovalle Perez
Contact
Bio
Dr. Vanessa Ovalle Perez (she/her/ella) is Associate Professor of English at California State University, San Bernardino, specializing in Latinx Literature. She also serves as assistant director of CSUSB’s Center for the Study of Correctional Education where she organizes and teaches Prison Education Project creative writing classes for incarcerated students. Her book Vasto Pensamiento, Vast Thought: Latinas in the Nineteenth-Century California Press will be published on January 19, 2027 by Amherst College Press. The book will be available for purchase in print and also open-access online thanks to a grant from the College of Arts and Letters.
Education
Ph.D. Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture (Comparative Literature) - University of Southern California
Graduate Certificate, Gender Studies - University of Southern California
M.A. Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture (Comparative Literature) - University of Southern California
B.A. Comparative Literature - Cornell University
Courses/Teaching
(ENG 3230) Chicanx Literature: Precarity and Solidarity Fronteriza
(ENG 3360) Women Writers: Intersectional Imagining and Coalition Building
(ENG 5140) Community-Based Writing: Prison Education Project
(ENG 5150) Senior Seminar: To the Archive!
(ENG 5150) Senior Seminar: “Out West” Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality in Literature of the American West
(ENG 6510) “Out West” Intersectional Literary Perspectives of the American West
(ENG 6020) Seminar in a Literary Genre: Latinx Poetics
(ENG 1210) Diversity Literature & Social Justice
(ENG 2250) Historical Approaches to American Literature
(ENG 3010) Analysis of Poetry and Drama: The Poetics of Performance
(Honors 3300/3350) Belonging Across Borders: Immigrant Inquiry Project
Research and Teaching Interests
During the 2022-23 academic year, Dr. Ovalle Perez was in residence as a research fellow at The Huntington Library.
Her article “Toasting México in the American West: Brindis Poems and Political Loyalties of Women’s Mexican Patriotic Clubs” is available in Letras Femeninas.
Her article “Voicing a Transnational Latina Poetics: The Dedication Poems of Amelia Denis and Carlota Gutierrez” is available in J19.
Her essay “Inspiration or Coincidence? Guadalupe Gutierrez and María Berta Quintero y Escudero’s Espinas y rosas as Discursive Doubles” is available in Spain, the United States, and Transatlantic Literary Culture throughout the Nineteenth Century, an edited volume published by Routledge.
Her podcast on the topic of Latina dedication poetry is available on the C19 Podcast via Soundcloud.