Education:
Ph.D., Columbia University - 2008 (English & Comparative Literature)
B.A., Harvard University - 1998 (Social Studies)
Areas of Expertise:
Caribbean, African diaspora, Latinx and Latin American literatures; oceanic and archipelagic theories of world literature; slavery and Holocaust memory-cultures; critical race theory; global modernism; reggae, dancehall, and Jamaican cultural studies; narco-culture; Marxism; postcolonial studies; Muslim slave narratives and new world Orientalism.
Books and Publications
"Arabic Itineraries across Oceans and Continents: Edward Wilmot Blyden and Muslim Slave Writing in the Americas," in The Cambridge Companion to Slavery in Global Literatures, ed. Laura Murphy (London: Cambridge University Press, 2022 [forthcoming]). (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2022
"Ocean, Archipelagoes, and World Literature," in The Routledge Companion to World Literature, 2nd Edition, eds. David Damrosch, Theo D'Haen, and Djelal Kedir (New York: Routledge, 2022), 442-451. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2022
Review article, Brian Russell Roberts, Borderwaters: Amid the Archipelagic State of America (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021), American Literary History [forthcoming] (Books and Publications: Book Review) 2022
Jason Frydman, Peter Abrahams of South Africa: Learning to Read (in) the Global 1930s, Critical Arts, 34:3 (2020), 9-22. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2020
"Death in the Arena: A Brief History of Dancehall, Time, and the Cold War," Small Axe 60 (November 2019): 34-49. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2019
"Kafka, the Caribbean, and the Holocaust," Interventions 21.8 (2019): 1087-1106. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2019
"Scheherezade in Chains: Muslim Slave Narratives and the Arab-Islamic Genealogy of African Diaspora Literature," in The Global South Atlantic, eds. Kerry Bystrom and Joseph R. Slaughter (Fordham UP). (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2017
Review article, Vincent Schleitweiler, Strange Fruit of the Black Pacific: Imperialism's Racial Justice and Its Fugitives (New York: NYU Press, 2016), American Literary History, Series XIII, 2017. (Books and Publications: Book Review) 2017
"Narco-narratives and Transnational Form: The Geopolitics of Citation in the Circum-Caribbean," Postmodern Culture 26.1 (July 2015). (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2015
Sounding the Break: African American and Caribbean Routes of World Literature. Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Press. (Books and Publications: Book (Authored)) 2014
"Jamaican Nationalism, Queer Intimacies, and the Disjunctures of the Chinese Diaspora: Patricia Powell's The Pagoda," Small Axe 34 (March 2011): 82-109. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2010
"World Literature and Diaspora Studies," in The Routledge Companion to World Literature, eds. Theo D'haen, David Damrosch, and Djelal Kadir. London: Routledge, 2011. 232-241. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2010
"Zora Neale Hurston, Biographical Criticism, and African Diasporic Vernacular Culture." MELUS: The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S. 34.4, Winter: 99-118. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2009
"Violence, Masculinity, and Upward Mobility in the Dominican Diaspora: Junot Díaz, the Media, and Drown." Hispanic-American Authors. New York: Chelsea House. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2008
Caribbean Transnationalism: Migration, Pluralisation and Social Cohesion book reivew. H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online March. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2008
"Upward Mobility as a Neurotic Condition in Sandra Cisneros. The House on Mango Street." Exit9 8: 15-23. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2007
"Violence, Masculinity, and Upward Mobility in the Dominican Diaspora: Junot Díaz, the Media, and Drown." Columbia Journal of American Studies 8, Spring: 99-118. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2007
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums
"Narco-narratives in the Americas: Scripting Illegality in Telenovelas, the Dancehall, and the Courtroom." Caribbean Epistemologies Symposium. CUNY Graduate Center. New York. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2011