Clara Verónica Valdano

Dr. Clara Veronica Valdano is from Ecuador. She has a Ph.D. in Latin American and Spanish Literature and Cultures from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The focus of her research was in Latin American Colonial period and Nineteenth-Century literature and cultures. Her approaches are grounded in interdisciplinary, cultural, feminist, and gender studies. She includes her research in her teaching. She has  presented at conferences, researched, or published about a diversity of topics; some of the topics include:

• Nineteenth-Century Andean literature: Feminism and Postcolonialism/Coloniality
• Political and economic agency of indigenous women: Cacicas (Indigenous Women chiefs) in 17-18th Century Ecuador (Archival research)
• History of the Incas and Tahuantinsuyo: Focus on Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Guamán Poma de Ayala, and Martin Murua 
• Visual Culture: Representations of Atahualpa from 16th-17th centuries. 
• Analysis of Casta paintings and Casta system in Latin America 
• History of Black communities and their contributions to Latin American nations.
• Indigenous knowledge: Healers vs. “western” medicine.
• Mestizos: Latin American popular cultures and oral traditions.
• Colonial and capitalist exploitation of labor portrayed in Andean Novels
• Cultural geography: The ideological representation of space in maps.
• Mythical representations of space (16th-18th centuries).
• Religious interpretations of topographies and volcanic eruptions in the 17th Century.
• Smallpox epidemics in Quito (and the history of pandemics and vaccines).
• Measuring the shape of the Earth in the equator (18th Century).   
• Expeditions in the search for plants and minerals: Capitalism and/or science? 
• Connections between patriotism and maps.
• Representations of LGTBQ+ people through time and across cultures. 

She includes these topics in her classes, which broadly are Spanish language and Latin American/Spanish culture, history, and literature. She has also taught topics on Visual Culture and Cultural Geography. Dr. Valdano’s work shows a strong connection to the history of sciences as well –such as taxonomy, cartography, geodesy, physics, medicine, and botany.  

She is committed to fomenting policies on inclusivity, equity, and diversity in her classrooms and academic community. She incorporates these practices in everyday teaching, in the curriculum, and in the language used to interact with students. She has supported students’ events, ideas, and clubs to educate the community about inclusivity. 

Finally, Dr. Valdano also enjoys learning about technology. She is never afraid to try new technologies for teaching. She has been a virtual education teacher since 2006.  In her free time, she reads Hispanic authors and books on immigration, feminism, ethnicity, gender, and the history of humanity. Another passion of hers is learning about animal behavior. She also hikes in the company of her wife, friends, and dog.