Valerie Hegstrom, PhD

WELCOME!

Valerie Hegstrom

is Professor Emerita at Brigham Young University,

where she taught Spanish literature, women’s studies, and comparative literature for thirty years and served as coordinator of the global women’s studies program for more than thirteen years. Her classes focused on early modern (16th and 17th-century) Spanish literature, particularly theater, and on women writers. She taught writing and research skills every semester in the global women’s studies colloquium (lecture series) and capstone experience. Additionally, she co-directed study abroad programs based in Spain, Mexico, Great Britain, and touring throughout western Europe. Prior to her career at BYU, she completed her doctoral work at the University of Kansas and taught for four years at the University of New Mexico.

She is the president of the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater (AHCT), co-executive editor of More Than Muses: A Digital Library of Texts by Iberian Women from the Middle Ages through the Nineteenth Century, a team member of the Carmelitas Escritoras project (CARMEL-LIT), and a steering committee member of the Teatro clássico português no feminino project. She was a co-mentor of the BYU Spanish Golden Age Theater project, which spanned a decade (2002-2011), toured seven full-length plays and dozens of scenes to university campuses, school assemblies, and theater festivals, and provided pedagogical resources and workshops for teachers. She was also a founding mother of the Grupo de Estudios sobre la Mujer en España y las Américas – Pre-1800 (GEMELA).

Dr. Hegstrom’s research focuses on the recovery of literary works by early modern women who wrote in Spanish and Portuguese and the performance of plays from the period. She has published many articles and book chapters on these topics, as well as editions of plays by Ângela de Azevedo and María de Zayas. She regularly shares her expertise in classes, public lectures, and at academic conferences. Check out the “Lectures” tab for upcoming presentations.

Dr. Hegstrom was awarded the 2018 David Gitlitz Comedia Prize in Pedagogy and Mentorship by the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater and was named an Alcuin Fellow by BYU’s College of General Education and Honors (2005-2008). She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Program for Cultural Cooperation Between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States Universities to support her research.