Developing an inclusive, culturally aware classroom experience for Hope College students is one of Dr. Génesis Portillo’s goals. She teaches French and Spanish language courses and upper-level courses on Spanish and Latin American literature. As an instructor at Florida International University prior to joining the Hope College faculty in 2021, she also taught Spanish classes focused on business communication.

In her classes, she values students’ participation and enjoys joking around with them. She draws connections for them between what they are reading in Spanish language literature and contemporary political and social developments in Latin America and Spain.

In late 2023 her publisher will release Sátira y contrahistorias en la Guerra Civil Peruana (1895) a través de la prensa político-satírica en Lima (1892–1895), an anthology about political satire in the era of Peru’s 1895 civil war. She curated, edited and wrote the introduction for the book over several years, including a period funded by a Hope College Nyenhuis research grant. A related ongoing project is research about violence, memory and female embodiment in that political satire.

Dr. Portillo also has worked as a copyeditor and translator. She is a member of the Modern Language Association, Latin American Studies Association and Nineteenth-Century Studies Association.

Areas of Interest/Expertise

• 19th-century Peruvian history and literature
• Worldwide cinema
• 20th and 21st century Spanish and Latin American literature

Education

• French as a foreign language, certificate, French Institute Alliance Française, 2022
• Ph.D., Spanish language and literature, Florida International University, 2020
• B.A., Peruvian and Latin American literatures, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (Lima, Peru)

Grants

• “Sátira y contrahistorias en la Guerra Civil Peruana (1895) a través de la prensa político-satírica en Lima (1892–1895),” Jacob E. Nyenhuis Faculty Development Research Grant, Hope College, 2021

Selected Publications and Presentations

• “La inestable grisette: representación femenina en ‘Las transformaciones de Mimí Pinsón,’” presentation at Simposio Internacional Rubén Darío: el Archivo y la Vida, University of Notre Dame, 2023
• Sátira y contrahistorias en la Guerra Civil Peruana (1895) a través de la prensa político-satírica en Lima (1892–1895) (editor), forthcoming 2023
• “Dominando a la bestia: el tedio como catalizador en Puñales escondidos (1998),” in Pilar Dughi: Ave de la noche (edited by P. Giovanna and M. Rodriguez Barreno), forthcoming
• “Tocas y sotanas (1910) o la novela como protesta,” Centro de Estudios Literarios Antonio Cornejo Polar, 2022
• “Unbroken Molds: Comparing the Relationships between the 19th Century French and Peruvian Satirical Press through Caricatures and Engravings,” American Comparative Literature Association meeting, 2021
• “Revisitando el costumbrismo: hacía una lectura del costumbrismo decimonónico,” with M. Watson, in Historia de las Literaturas en el Perú, vol. 3, edited by M. Velázquez Castro and R. Chang-Rodríguez, 2021
• “Mujeres evanescentes o lo femenino ornamental en Cuentos Malévolos de Clemente Palma,” Decimonónica, 2019

Outside the College

Learning languages is a hobby for Dr. Portillo. She’s currently trying to learn several Asian languages.

As someone interested in photography, she is fascinated by light and enjoys how different it is in Holland, Michigan, than it is in Peru. Having grown up there with warm temperatures all year round, she takes pleasure in Michigan’s seasons as well.

She loves to read novels while sipping tea, particularly novels that look at the experience of females in different periods of history. She gravitates to foreign literature such as Asian and European literature. These days she also likes to read manga, watch anime and listen to K-pop.