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.

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), 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
• “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

As someone interested in photography, Dr. Portillo 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 Eastern Asian and Western European literature.