Yesenia Blanco holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Berkeley. She joined the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics as a Lecturer in Spanish in Fall 2025. Prior to her academic position at the University of Oklahoma, Yesenia taught Spanish as a second/another language, Spanish as a heritage language, and Iberian, Latin American, and Latinx literatures and cultures at the University of California, Berkeley for a decade. During her time at Berkeley, she was awarded a Berkeley Language Center (BLC) Fellowship, for which she completed a research project on curriculum development for courses on Spanish as a heritage language.
Yesenia’s research interests include embodied solidarities and affective atmospheres in literary and cultural texts from 1930s Iberia. In addition to Iberian Studies, Yesenia is interested in Spanish as a heritage language and critical pedagogies in the language classroom.
At OU, Yesenia teaches beginning, intermediate, and advanced Spanish-language courses. She also serves as advising liaison for Spanish majors and minors.
