Emil' KemeProfessor of English

Emory courses to be taught by Professor Keme:

• Eng 250W: American Literature, Beginnings to 1865
• Eng 356: Native American Literature
• Eng 388: Topics in Literature & Environment (Indigenous Environmental Justice)

Emil’ Keme, a.k.a. Emilio del Valle Escalante, is an Indigenous K’iche’ Maya scholar and activist and a professor in the Department of English at Emory University. He is a member of the Maya anti-colonial, binational collective Ix’balamquej Junajpu Wunaq’. 

Keme is the author of Le Maya Q’atzij/Our Maya Word: Poetics of Resistance in Guatemala (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), which won Cuba’s prestigious Premio Literario Casa de las Américas in 2020, and Maya Nationalisms and Postcolonial Challenges in Guatemala: Coloniality, Modernity, and Identity Politics (University of New Mexico Press, 2009). He has also published edited volumes and numerous articles on Indigenous rights. Keme volunteers as a cultural advisor for the International Mayan League, in Washington, DC, an Indigenous women–led organization that works for the rights of Indigenous migrants from South America in the United States. He earned an MA and PhD from the University of Pittsburgh.