EDUCATION

A.B., University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania

ACADEMIC PROFILE

Specializes in Caribbean and African American literatures. Her scholarly interests include literatures of the Americas, particularly 20th Century women’s popular fiction, mystery/detective, and futurist fiction/fantasy writing. She is currrently interested in the detective and/or futurist fiction of Nalo Hopkinson, Walter Mosley, BarbaraNeely, and Colson Whitehead. Her first manuscript, “Colón Man a Come”: Mythographies of Panamá Canal Migration, examines the recurrent figure of the Panama Canal worker in Caribbean literature, song, and memoir.

COURSES

 EN083.07 - Literature:Traditions/Countertraditions

 EN139.01 - Introduction to Caribbean Studies   

PUBLICATIONS (SELECTED)

• "Mythographies of Panamá Canal Migrations: Eric Waldron's 'Panama Gold'." Marginal Migrations: The Circulation of Cultures within the Caribbean. Oxford: Macmillan Press-Warwick University Caribbean Studies, 2003. pp. 43-76
• "What If You're an 'Incredibly Unattractive,Fat, Pastrylike--fleshed Man'?:Teaching Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place." College Literature 30.3 Summer '03, 1-18.
• "Colon Man Version: Oppositional Narratives and Jamaican Identity in Michael Thewell's The Harder They Come." Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research 2.2 (2002), 157-176.
• "Only a Little Brown": Mary Seacole's Creole Performance in Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands." Gender and History, forthcoming.
• "Jamaica Kincaid," The Columbia Companion to the 20th Century American Short Story, 2001.
• Review of Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Race and Gender in the Work of Zora Neale Hurston by Susan Edwards Meisenhelder (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999) for American Literature 73.1 (March 2001): 209-210.

ADDITIONAL PROFESSIONAL INFORMATION

Awards & Honors:

• Emerging Voices, New Directions/Ford Foundation/Bowdoin College Summer Grant, 2003.
• Scholars-in-Residence Fellowship, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 2001-2002
• DuBois-Mandela-Rodney Fellowship, University of Michigan, 2001-2002 (declined)
• Faculty Fellowship, Boston College, Fall 2001 (declined)
• Research Incentive Grant, Boston College, Spring 2000

Professional Organizations:
American Studies Association (ASA)
Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars (ACWWS)
Caribbean Studies Association (CSA)
Modern Language Association (MLA)