Vanesa Miseres is an associate professor of Spanish who specializes in the cultural and literary landscapes of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Latin America. Her research and teaching exploring diverse topics such as travel writing, war literature, women writers, gender, cultural, and food studies. She has been a Kellogg faculty fellow since 2015.
Miseres is the author of Mujeres en tránsito: viaje, identidad y escritura en Sudamérica (1830–1910), which received the 2018 Alfredo Roggiano Prize for Latin American Literary Criticism from the IILI and an Honorable Mention for the Victoria Urbano Critical Monograph Prize from the Association of Gender & Sexuality Studies. Her second book, Gender Battles: Latin American Women, War, and Feminism, has garnered support from various grants, including a Mendel Fellowship from the Lilly Library, a Global Gateway Faculty Research Award from Notre Dame, and a Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers. Additionally, Miseres is the co-editor of Food Studies in Latin American Literature. Perspectives on the Gastronarrative.
Miseres serves as associate editor for the Latin American Research Review, the academic journal of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).
In collaboration with Kellogg faculty fellow Vania Smith-Oka (anthropology), since 2023 Miseres has led a project empowering Latinx women who experienced violence during pregnancy and childbirth through art and literature. A new expanded phase of the project will include art workshops, an exhibition, and a public humanities book sharing participants' stories.
Currently, Miseres is engaged in two new book projects: a cultural history tracing the evolution of vegetarianism in Latin America since 1900 and a study of the intersections of gender and science, focusing on botany, domestic science, and gynecology. She also is co-editing an anthology of Latin American early feminist debates from 1900–1940.
Affiliated with the Gender Studies Program, Miseres is also a fellow of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. She holds a PhD in Spanish from Vanderbilt University.
