Vanessa K. Valdés is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at The City College of New York – CUNY. Her research interests include comparative studies of the literatures of the Americas, particularly Afro-Hispanic, African-American, Spanish Caribbean, and U.S. Latina/o Literatures. She currently serves as Book Review Editor of s/x salon, an online literary salon on Caribbean literature and culture. Her articles and reviews have appeared in such journals as Hispania, Chasqui, MELUS Journal, CLA Journal, Callaloo, PALARA, Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, LSE Review of Books, and Wadabagei. She is the editor of The Future Is Now: A New Look at African Diaspora Studies (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012) and Let Spirit Speak! Cultural Journeys through the African Diaspora (SUNY Press, 2012). She is the author of Oshun's Daughters: The Search for Womanhood in the Americas (SUNY Press 2014) and Diasporic Blackness: The Life and Times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (SUNY Press 2017).