Professor, English
Ph.D., Northeastern University
M.A., Boston University
A.B. with Honors, Brown University
ENGL 150: College Writing II
ENGL 151: Reading and Imagination
ENGL 216: Coming of Age in Literature and Film
ENGL 257: Global Anglophone Language and Literature
ENGL 256: African American Literature
ENGL 291: Community Dialogue Workshop
ENGL 393: Faulkner and the Global South
ENGL 441: Modern and Contemporary Black Literatures of the Americas
My research and teaching focus on Global Anglophone Literatures, African American and African Diasporic Literatures, Nordics Literatures, Postcolonial Theory, and Gender and Sexuality Studies. In my literature and writing courses, students interact with a range of texts, cultural perspectives, and ideas and are active participants in the production of knowledge. Through their active involvement in class discussions, my students develop the ability to engage with language on a deeper level and, as a result, to harness their power to affect change in their fields, the academy, or the world at large.
My research analyzes representations of interracial intimacy, racial and gender hierarchies, and colonial inheritance in literature from across the globe, including Nordic, US Southern, and Caribbean Literatures. My second book, Intersecting Worlds: Colonial Liminality in US Southern and Icelandic Literatures (University Press of Mississippi, 2025), explores the liminality, ambiguity, and general ease that result when postcolonial theories are applied to both Iceland and the U.S. South. Examining the work of U.S. Southern writers, including William Faulkner, Jean Toomer, and Caribbean American Tiphanie Yanique, alongside Icelandic novelists, such as Jakobsdðttir, Halldðr Laxness, and Guðbergur Bergsson, reveals much about each region's history and the complexity of colonial dynamics.
Additionally, my first book, Policing Intimacy: Law, Sexuality, and the Color Line in Twentieth-Century Hemispheric American Literature (University Press of Mississippi, 2021) examines literary representations of sexual policing of the color line across spaces with distinct colonial histories and constructions of race: Mississippi, Louisiana, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.
Along with Icelandic scholar, Haukur Ingvarsson, I coordinate The Nordic Faulkner Studies Network, which connects Faulkner scholars living and working in Nordic countries, as well as other scholars across the globe researching Faulkner in relation to Nordic literatures, cultures, and histories.
My community-based leaning course, “Open Up: Community Dialogue Workshop,” puts my antiracist scholarship into practice, bridging the gap between theory and social change. I collaborate with MCLA students to develop interactive workshops for local high school students that encourage dialogue on topics like race, racism, and identity through the use of media.
Intersecting Worlds: Colonial Liminality in US Southern and Icelandic Literatures. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2025.
"Aesthetic Radicals: White Violence as Exclusion in William Faulkner's US South and Guðbergur Bergsson's Iceland." The Faulkner Journal. 34.1 (Spring 2020/2024): 21-42.
“‘[T]he critic must leave the Western hemisphere’: Faulkner and World Literature.” The New Faulkner Studies. Ed. Sarah Gleeson-White and Pardis Dabashi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.
Policing Intimacy: Law, Sexuality, and the Color Line in Twentieth-Century Hemispheric American Literature. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2021.
“‘[A] border that exists beyond maps’: Contextualizing State-Sponsored Violence in Contemporary Haitian-American and Dominican-American Literature.” Special Issue of The Global South, “Contextualizing the Anglophone Novel.” Ed. Shun Y. Kiang, 2021.
"Racial Ambiguity, Bootlegging, and the Subversion of Plantation Hierarchies in Faulkner’s South.” Southern Comforts: Drinking and the U.S. South. Ed. Matthew Dischinger and Conor Picken. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020. 193-206.
“Postcolonial Palimpsests: Entwined Colonialisms and the Conflicted Representation of Charles Bon in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!” ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature 47.4 (October 2016): 1-23.
“‘For fear of a scandal’: Sexual Policing and the Preservation of Colonial Relations in William Faulkner and Marie Vieux-Chauvet.” Faulkner and the Black Literatures of the Americas. Ed. Jay Watson and James G. Thomas, Jr. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2016. 183-193.
“‘My memory of the genocide stops here’:The Poetics of Traumatized Subjectivities and Colonial Inheritance in Tierno Monénembo’s The Oldest Orphan.” The Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies 3.2 (Fall 2015): 16-33.
Klaustrið Residency at Skriðuklaustur, residency at Gunnar Gunnarsson's homestead to support research on southern gothic tropes and themes in Icelandic Litrature, July 2025.
Snorri Sturluson Icelandic Fellowship, to support a three-month research visit to Iceland for "Transatlantic Connections, Gender Dynamics, and Saga Realism in Svava Jakobsdðttir," The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, May-July 2024.
MCLA Faculty Award for Leadership in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, in recognition of my contributions to MCLA's equity and inclusion efforts in my classroom and through my service, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, May 2023.
Faculty Incentive Research Award, for Intersecting Worlds: Colonial Liminality in US Southern and Icelandic Literatures, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, May 2023.
Lillian Gary Taylor Visiting Fellowship in American Literature, to work with the William Faulkner Collection at the University of Virginia; The Mary and David Harrison Institute for American History, Literature, and Culture; July 2022.
American Scandinavian Foundation Fellowship, to support research in Iceland and Denmark for Intersecting Worlds: Colonial Liminality in US Southern and Icelandic Literatures, September-December 2021.
Northeast Modern Language Association Summer Fellowship, to support research in Iceland for Intersecting Worlds: Colonial Liminality in US Southern and Icelandic Literatures, September 2021.
Presenter, "Aspirational Representations of an 'Unremembered' War in Gina Apostol's lnsurrecto," The 28th Biennial Conference of the Nordic Association for American Studies Turku, Finland, June 2025.
Presenter, "Hidden in Plain Sight: Faulkner, The Philippines, and Colonial Histories." Modern Language Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, January 2025.
Panel Organizer and Presider, "The Far North & the Global South." Modern Language Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, January 2025.
Panel Organizer, "Faulkner in Asia, Asia in Faulkner, and Faulkner and Asian Writers." Presenter, "'Taste and responsibility-you Manila Snopeses': Faulkner and the Philippines." The Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference: Anniversaries. Oxford, Mississippi/Virtual, July 2024.
"Intersecting Worlds: Colonial Liminality in US Southern and Icelandic Literatures." Invited Speaker: The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies. Iceland. June 2024.
Panel Organizer, "Unpacking Surplus in the Novels of Tiphanie Yanique." Presenter, '"A woman's wildness': Gender, Intergenerational Ties, and Spectral Colonial Histories in Tiphanie Yanique and Fríða Áslaug Sigurðardóttir." Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, Boston, Massachusetts, March 2024.
Panel Co-Organizer, “Social Realism, Gender Variance, and the Revolt from the Village in Icelandic writer Halldór Laxness.” Presenter, “Liminality, Nonconformity, and Disidentification in Halldór Laxness and Carson McCullers.” Modern Language Association Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 2024.
“A woman’s wildness”: Gender, Intergenerational Ties, and Spectral Colonial Histories in Tiphanie Yanique and Fríða Áslaug Sigurðardóttir.” Southeastern American Studies Association Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, September 2023.
Panel Co-Organizer, “Comparatively Queer: Sexuality, Identity, and Experimentation in Faulkner and Beyond.” Presenter, “Containing Subversive Gender Identities in Halldór Laxness’s Salka Valka and William Faulkner’s Sanctuary.” The Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference: Queer Faulkner. Oxford, Mississippi, July 2023.
“Gender Dynamics and Love Triangles in Halldór Laxness’s Salka Valka and William Faulkner’s Sanctuary.” Invited Speaker: Gljúfrasteinn Laxness Museum. Iceland. June 2023.
“First Drafts: Of Love and Dust.” Invited Speaker: Ernest J. Gaines Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Hybrid Event. May 2023.
“Nonconformity and Intersecting Hierarchies of Identity in Halldór Laxness and Carson McCullers.” American Literature Association Conference, Boston, Massachusetts, May 2023.
“White Violence as Exclusion in Guðbergur Bergsson’s Iceland and William Faulkner’s and Jean Toomer’s US South.” Invited Speaker: The Mind’s Eye Works-In-Progress Colloquium. Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. January 2023.
“Ernest J. Gaines Memorial Lecture.” Invited Speaker: Ernest J. Gaines Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Zoom Event. December 2022.
“William Faulkner’s US South and Tierno Monénembo’s Rwanda: A Transhistorical and Transgeographical Reading,” International Colloquium: “Faulkner’s France / La France de Faulkner,” Amiens, France, October 2022.
Panel Co-Organizer, “The Far North and the Global South.” Presenter, “White Violence as Exclusion in Guðbergur Bergsson’s Iceland and Jean Toomer’s US South,” Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Atlanta, Georgia, June 2022.
Chair and Organizer, “Emerging & Dismantling: Feminist Killjoys Confront SSSL’s Past and Present.” Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Atlanta, Georgia, June 2022.
“Contextualizing State-Sponsored Violence in Contemporary Haitian American and Dominican American Literature.” Invited Speaker: Florida Atlantic University. January 2022.
“Peripheralized Norths and Souths: Colonial Liminality, William Faulkner, and Icelandic Literature.” Invited Speaker: University of Copenhagen. November 2021.
“‘[A] border that exists beyond maps’: Contextualizing State-Sponsored Violence in Contemporary Haitian American and Dominican American Literatures.” Invited Speaker: University of Iceland. October 2021.
“Repetition and the Reifying of Racial Lines in Halldór Laxness and William Faulkner.” International Symposium: “Faulkner’s fetishized words,” Virtual, May 2021.
Chair and Organizer, “Anti-Oppressive Pedagogies: Social Justice & Community Engagement in the Classroom.” Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, Virtual, March 2021.
Panel Co-Organizer, “Faulkner in the North.” Presenter, “Exposing White Violence in William Faulkner’s US South and Guðbergur Bergsson’s Iceland,” Faulkner Studies in the UK Colloquium: Faulkner, Transgressive Fiction, Postmodernism, Virtual, January 2021.
