Daniel Valella

Daniel Valella is Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature and Faculty Associate in Latina/o Studies at the University of Michigan. His research interests include 20th- and 21st-century U.S. minority literatures; comparative ethnic studies; rhetorical theory; queer cultures and critique; the history and theory of cinema; and structures of citizenship, detention, and exile.

His current book project, American Ethos: Race, Coloniality, and Literary Persuasion, examines how post-1945 U.S. minority writers and their literary speakers have developed new forms of rhetorical ethos—the illumination of shared rituals, iconographies, spiritual beliefs, locations, and ethical values—to persuade readers to help eradicate racism, sexism, homophobia, and other social injustices.

His course offerings, often cross-listed with American Culture and Women’s & Gender Studies, include Queer of Color Literature and Culture; Latinx Literature of the U.S.; Rhetoric, Race, and American Literature; Identity/Crisis: Under-One-Roof Narratives; and The Hustle: American Fictions of Con Artistry and Upward Mobility.

Recent Publications:

“Harryette Mullen’s Multiethnic Afrosurrealism.” Culture, Language and Representation / Cultura, Lenguaje y Representación, vol. 37, November 2025, pp. 127–144.

“Crystal City’s ‘Alien’ Farmworkers: Tomás Rivera’s …y no se lo tragó la tierra and the Shared Histories of Chicanx and Japanese American Detention.” MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, vol. 48, no. 1, Spring 2023, pp. 115–141.

“From Familiar to Familial: Gloria Anzaldúa’s Queer Rhetorical Kinship.” Ethnicity and Kinship in North American and European Literatures, edited by Silvia Schultermandl and Klaus Rieser, Routledge, 2021, pp. 25–41.