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Juan Manuel Ramírez Velázquez is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Colonial Latin American Literatures at �󷢲�Ʊ. He earned his Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Latin American Studies from Washington University in St. Louis. His current book project, under advance contract, explores affect, gender, and marriage in the Early Colonial Spanish World. His scholarship has appeared in Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Hispanic Review, Journal of Early Modern Studies, and various edited volumes. He is also involved in two co-editing projects: a special issue for Anuario de Estudios Americanos and an in-progress volume on pureza de sangre, calidad, and lineage in the Spanish Empire, culminating in an international conference in Spring 2026 and the publication of an edited collection. His research has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Folger Library, the Huntington Library, the ACMRS Center for Renaissance and Medieval Studies at Arizona State University, the Renaissance Society of America, the Washington University Center for the Humanities, and the �󷢲�Ʊ Faculty Research Council. He currently serves on the Modern Language Association’s Executive Committee for 16th- and 17th-century Spanish and Iberian poetry and prose, as well as the Renaissance Society of America’s DEI board. Additionally, he is an Assistant Editor of the Journal of Gender and Sexuality Studies.

As in my research, re-examining silenced voices in colonial archives is also a central component of my teaching philosophy. At �󷢲�Ʊ, my students and I rethink the canonicity of narratives that have been omitted or understudied, from the survey course SPAN 354: “Latin American Literature: Colonialism, Mestizaje, and Independencies” to different undergraduate seminars. In my course “‘Nuns Having Fun’ in Colonial Latin America,” we examine the creativity and literary production within the walls of colonial convents without forgetting the violence and subjugation these spaces could also produce, as well as nuns’ forms of resistance through discourse. In “Colonial Black and Indigenous Thinkers,” students explore the often-overlooked voices of Black and Indigenous peoples in colonial Latin America, engaging with theoretical debates that capture how Indigeneity and Blackness often slip through our cultural and literary understanding. These frameworks allow us to recenter marginalized peoples, using a transcontinental approach to grasp the globalized contexts of the readings. I ensure that my students discover the vast diversity of the early modern and colonial world, from Europe and Africa to the Americas and the Philippines and beyond.