Samuel Jaffee

Samuel Jaffee holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine, with a specialization in Andean literary and cultural studies, for which he conducted research at the Instituto Riva-Agüero in Lima, and studied the Quechua language at Centro Tinku in Cusco, Peru.  While at UC Irvine, he taught all levels of Spanish language and composition, and in the Humanities Core program, a year-long interdisciplinary course for first-year students in writing and research. 

At UW, Jaffee teaches courses in Latin American speculative fiction, cultural studies, literary journalism, Andean literature and art, film and digital storytelling, and a creative writing course based on mystery writing.  His courses often feature the Pre-Texts protocol of creative readings and interactive debates, in which he is a trained facilitator: students pose esoteric questions by applying methodologies from other disciplines that make the material relatable to majors in the arts and STEM fields.

He has directed study abroad programs in León, Spain, and Quito, Ecuador, and received a Global Innovation Fund grant from the UW Office of Global Affairs.  Spanish majors twice invited him to be the faculty liaison to the undergraduate Spanish Club.  He was part of the founding faculty team of Humanities First, an interdepartmental program for first-year students, in 2021. That year, he collaborated with another team-taught humanities course, "World Literature and the Nobel Prize," for which he taught journalism and fiction by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez.  His work was recognized in 2022 with the UW Distinguished Teaching Award, the annual university-wide honor for innovative instruction, curriculum development, and mentorship.

He presents widely on his research in Andean literary and cultural studies, leads conference sessions on pedagogy and literature, and conducts workshops for high school and college instructors on strategies for teaching classes of heritage and second-language learners, writing pedagogy, and incorporating Indigenous language-cultures into a Spanish curriculum.  He has been a longtime collaborator with the UW Center for Teaching and Learning, in several ways: as a participant in the Evidence-Based Teaching Program (an interdepartmental faculty research seminar and practicum), a presenter at the annual Teaching and Learning Symposium, a writer for the Teaching Everywhere series, an evaluator for the Excellence in Teaching Award for graduate student instructors, and a Technology Teaching Fellow. 

In his free time, he volunteers at Seattle World School, the city’s dedicated public high school for recent immigrants who are English language learners, working with the newest Americans to shape their own journeys.