Emil’ Keme

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND INDIGENOUS STUDIES, EMORY UNIVERSITY

Emil’ Keme (aka Emilio del Valle Escalante) is an Indigenous K’iche’ Maya scholar from Iximulew (Land of Corn, and the K’iche’ name for Guatemala), and professor of English and Indigenous studies at Emory University.

He is a first-generation college graduate. His teaching and research focus on contemporary Indigenous literatures and social movements, Central American-American literatures and cultures, and postcolonial and subaltern studies theory.

His books include Le Maya Q’atzij/Our Maya Word. Poetics of Resistance in Guatemala (2021; Spanish, 2020 and 2022) and Maya Nationalisms and Postcolonial Challenges in Guatemala (2009; Spanish 2008).

Keme is a co-founding member of the binational Maya anti-colonial collective, Community of Maya Studies, Ix’balamquej Junajpu Wunaq’, and volunteers as a cultural advisor for the International Mayan League in Washington, D.C. He is also a trustee of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.