Juan Rafael Valdez

Juan R. Valdez teaches all levels of Spanish. He loves teaching as a way of helping all students to optimally develop their communicative skills while they also develop a critical sense of community and coexistence in a diverse world. Juan is also a scholar and a writer. Until recently his research 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. He has published two books: Tracing Dominican identity: the writings of Pedro Henríquez Ureña (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and En busca de la identidad: la obra de Pedro Henríquez Ureña (Ediciones Katatay, 2015). His forthcoming book is a series of essays that explore how our notions of politics, race, and nature impact our sense of place and belonging in the world. He has taught seminars as a Visiting Scholar in Germany and Cuba.