Monographs
- Evidence of Things Not Seen: Fantastical Blackness in Genre Fictions. Rutgers University Press, July 2022
Evidence of Things Not Seen: Fantastical Blackness in Genre Fictions is an interdisciplinary study of race in the Americas. The 鈥渇antastical鈥� in fantastical blackness is conceived by an unrestrained imagination because it lives, despite every attempt at annihilation; this blackness also amazes because it refuses the limits of anti-blackness. As put to work in this project, fantastical blackness is an ethical praxis that centers black self-knowledge as a point of departure rather than as a reaction to denigrating dominant narratives. Erotic romance, mystery/detective, fantasy, mixed-genre, and science fictions鈥� unrestrained imaginings profoundly communicate this quality of blackness, specifically in the work of BarbaraNeely, Tobias Buckell, Colin Channer, Nalo Hopkinson, and Colson Whitehead. Ultimately, the imaginable possibilities in these popular genres offer strategies through which readers can ask different questions of and for blackness. When black writers center this expressive quality, they make fantastical blackness available to a broad audience that then uses its imaginable vocabularies to reshape extra-literary realities. Ultimately, popular genres鈥� imaginable truths offer strategies through which the made up can be made real.
- 鈥淐ol贸n Man a Come鈥�: Mythographies of Panam谩 Canal Migration. Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington Books, January 2005
The Col贸n Man鈥攁 laborer named after Panam谩鈥檚 Caribbean port city鈥� was the subject of historical, sociological, and geographical research; 鈥淐ol贸n Man a Come鈥�: Mythographies of Panam谩 Canal Migration is the first examination of imaginings of this Panam谩 Canal laborer.聽The book traces the Col贸n Man through contemporaneous histories that convey the importance of the canal as an engineering achievement and as a sign of the US as a global power; it then examines more recent historical accounts that insert Col贸n Men into histories and geographies, marking these workers as integral to the successfully completed canal.聽Literary, lyrical, and personal narratives conjure these narratives鈥攁nd they tell tales that other disciplines leave untold. Literary narratives of the Panam谩 Canal draw on 鈥渋maginable truths鈥� that characterize this migrant and migration. Yet the import of these imaginable truths is that they informed Col贸n Men鈥檚 experiences with migration, labor, ethnicity/race, status/class, and masculinity.聽The disparities between creative, first person, and historical depictions of isthmian migration suggest that fictive renditions of canal work and workers represent Col贸n Men鈥檚 qualitative, imagined, and imaginable realities.聽聽
Works in Progress
- 鈥淪peculating on a Past/Future Self: Tan-Tan in Nalo Hopkinson鈥檚 Midnight Robber鈥�
- 鈥淐reolizing the Police Procedural: Patrick Chamoiseau鈥檚 Solibo Magnificent鈥�
- 鈥淭hrilling Conclusions: (Not) Fixing 鈥楿nderprivileged Youth鈥� in Steven Barnes鈥檚 Charisma鈥�
Articles
- 鈥淎int; Jokin鈥�; Unsettling Voyeurism Through Art and Affect,鈥� co-written with Leigh Patel. Carrie Mae Weems: Strategies of Engagement. Edited by Robin Lydenberg and Ash Anderson. The 51茶馆, 2018: 25-32.
- 鈥溾�楽tories of What If鈥�: Brown Girl in the Ring and Literary Fantasy as Theory,鈥� fiar: forum for inter-american research 11.1 (Apr. 2018): 6-18 ()
- 鈥淢aking Jamaican Love: Colin Channer鈥檚 Waiting in Vain and Romance-ified Diaspora Identities,鈥� Small Axe: A Journal of Caribbean Criticism 17.3 November 2013, Number 42: 63-84.
- 鈥淏eyond the Pale, Beyond the Dark: Representing Caribbean Racial Realities at a US University,鈥� Teaching Anglophone Caribbean Literature, MLA Options for Teaching Series, edited by Supriya Nair. New York: The Modern Languages Association of America, 2012: 255-278.
- 鈥淕enre, Gender, and Eric Walrond鈥檚 Equivocal Transnational Vision,鈥� Eric Walrond: The Critical Heritage, edited by Louis Parascandola and Carl Wade.聽 Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2012: 100-127.
- 鈥淐reole Performance in Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands.鈥� Gender and History 15.3 (November 2003): 487-506.聽 Reissued in Dialogues of Dispersal: Gender, Sexuality and African Diasporas.聽 Edited by Sandra Gunning, Tera W. Hunter, and Michele Mitchell.聽 Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004: 91-110.
- 鈥淢ythographies of Panam谩 Canal Migrations: Eric Walrond鈥檚 鈥楶anama Gold鈥�.鈥澛� Marginal Migrations: The Circulation of Cultures within the Caribbean. Oxford: Macmillan Press鈥擶arwick University Caribbean Studies, 2003.聽 Pp. 43-76.
- 鈥淲hat If You鈥檙e an 鈥業ncredibly Unattractive, Fat, Pastrylike-fleshed Man鈥�?: Teaching Jamaica Kincaid鈥檚 A Small Place.鈥� College Literature 30.3 (Summer 2003): 1-18.
- 鈥淐ol贸n Man Version: Oppositional Narratives and Jamaican Identity in Michael Thelwell鈥檚 The Harder They Come.鈥澛� Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research 2.2 (2002): 157-176.
Entries/Reviews
- Review of Sex and the Citizen: Interrogating the Caribbean edited by Faith Smith (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2011): 292 pp for Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal, Spring 2012
- 鈥淭he Col贸n Man鈥� and 鈥淛an Carew.鈥澛� Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History: The Black Experience in the Americas.聽 MacMillan Reference Books, December 2005.
- 鈥淛amaica Kincaid,鈥� The Columbia Companion to the 20th Century American Short Story, 2001.
- 鈥淭he Ethnic Consciousness Movement.鈥澛� The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States.聽 New York:聽 Oxford University Press, 1994.
- Review of Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick:聽 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.
Interviews
- Diana Wright, Mystik 1580 AM, 鈥淪outh Florida Speaks Out (Talk)鈥� 12 pm - 1 pm, 29 September 2003, , TOPIC: Graduate course, 鈥淛amaican Culture and Globalization鈥�
