Vitae

Education

• Ph.D., English Language and Literature, University of Virginia, expected May 2011
• Ancien Pensionnaire, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 2007
• M.A., English Language and Literature, University of Virginia, 2005
• B.A., English, Florida International University, 1999

Dissertation

“Travails of the Particular: A digital variorum of Aimé Césaire’s Et les chiens se taisaient.”
Committee: Jahan Ramazani, dir., Jerome McGann, Anna Brickhouse and A. James Arnold.

After discovering the earliest known manuscript version of Et les chiens se taisaient, it became clear that Césaire had started thinking about the theater earlier than had been assumed, and most importantly, that he had originally envisioned this work as a historical drama based on the Haitian Revolution. In “Travails of the Particular,” I am preparing a digital edition of the several witnesses of the play, from the manuscript to its last authorial instantiation in Œuvres Complètes in 1976, in order to shed light on the author’s troubled relationship with historical and geographical particularity. Two critical essays accompany the edition analyzing the author’s poetic evolution: The first places each of the generic shifts evinced by Et les chiens within this struggle between loyalty to the specifics of colonial experience and the project of developing a universalist poetics of rebirth and renewal. The second locates the text within current debates about the role of modernism in colonial and post-colonial literatures, comparing it to relevant texts on the Haitian Revolution by Derek Walcott.

Honors and Prizes

• University of Virginia Library Scholars’ Lab Fellow, 2010-2011.
• NINES Fellow, summer-fall 2010
• SHANTI (Sciences, Humanities & Arts Network of Technological Initiatives) Cohorts Fellowship Program to provide programming assistance for the Et les chiens se taisaient digital archive, 2009-2010.
• University of Virginia ENS Fellowship to cover a year of study at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. 2006-2007.
• Graduate Research Assistant Fellowship to cover one year of work as Project Manager for the Caribbean Literature Archive project with a leave of absence from the English Department, awarded by the Dean of Arts & Science. 2005.
• Rockefeller Foundation /Bellagio Study Center Conference Grant. Awarded for a one-week stay at The Bellagio Study Center in Italy (Caribbean Literature Archive team, planning conference). June 21-28, 2004.
• Robert J. Huskey Travel Fellowship awarded by the Graduate School of Arts and Science, University of Virginia. May 2004.
• T.A. of the Year. The Declaration (Student-run newspaper at the University of Virginia). Dec 5, 2002.
• Dean of Arts and Science Travel Grant. Used for travel to Cuba to aid in Callaloo’s “Cuban Issue” and to carry out preliminary research for the Caribbean Literature Archive, December, 2001.

Publications

• “La découverte d’un tapuscrit d’Et les chiens se taisaient.” Actes du colloque en honneur d’Aimé Césaire, novembre 2008. Presses AUF (Forthcoming 2010)
• “Bridging the Middle Passage: The textual (r)evolution of Césaire’s Cahier d’un retour au pays natal.” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature. (Forthcoming 2010)
• Review of Alfred Lopez’s Posts and Pasts: A Theory of Postcolonialism, The Comparatist, Vol. XXVIII (May 2004): 158-159.
• Man, Woman, Hunger: A Translation of Daina Chaviano’s El Hombre, la Hembra y el Hambre. The Yalobusha Review, University of Mississippi Press (May 2003): 63-67. (This is an excerpt from my still unpublished translation of the novel)

Conference Papers

• Autopoesis et modularité dans la génétique de Et les chiens se taisaient: pour une theorie des blocs. (co-talk with James Arnold) La génétique des textes et des formes: l’œuvre comme processus, Cerisy, FRANCE, 2010
• “Cahier d’un retour au pays natal : de la genèse à nos jours” (co-talk with James Arnold) Séminaire Manuscrit francophone 2009 – 2010, ITEM. 2010
• “Textualité et le jeu génétique chez Aimé Césaire : le cas d’Et les chiens se taisaient” Collectif de chercheurs francophones sur les littératures au Sud, Paris, 2009
• “How to spot a Ghost Ship in the Cahier d’un retour au pays natal: A reading of the 1939 text.” New World Studies Colloquium at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 2009.
• “Screwing Cuba: Henry James and the Spanish-American War.” Talk presented to the English Department at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 2005.

Teaching Experience (teaching portfolio available upon request)

Teaching Interests

• 20th Century pan-American literature: fiction, poetry and drama.
• Postcolonial theory and criticism; modernity/modernism.
• Comparative literature, with a focus on Caribbean literature and culture.
• Walcott, Brathwaite, Naipaul, Césaire, Glissant, Carpentier, Cabrera, Condé, Fanon, Rushdie, Coetzee, et al.

Courses Taught

The University of Virginia, Department of English:

• Local Politics (themed expository writing course), Spring 2010
• Apocalyptic Literature (themed expository writing course), Fall 2009
• Globalization (themed expository writing course), Fall 2008-Spring 2009
• Local Politics (themed expository writing course), Fall 2007-Spring 2008
• Democracy (themed expository writing course), Spring 2006
• In-Justice (themed expository writing course), Fall 2005
• The History of Love (themed expository writing course), Spring 2004
• Literature in English III (major level survey of modern and contemporary Literature), Fall 2003
• Magic and The Psychology of Lying (themed expository writing course), Spring 2003
• The Representation of Poverty (themed expository writing course), Fall 2002
• Literature in English II (major level survey of literature between the English and American Civil Wars), Spring 2002

The University of Virginia, Department of French:

• Contemporary Caribbean Culture and Literature (advanced course with a comparative approach), Fall 2004

The University of Virginia, Department of Spanish:

• Intermediate Spanish II, Spring 2004
• Intermediate Spanish I, Fall 2003

Related Experience

• Co-Editor of the Edition critique de l’Œuvre complète d’Aimé Césaire (Critical edition of the complete works of Aimé Césaire). Presses AUF. 2009-present
• Editor of the e-text edition of Alexander Exquemelin’s Bucaneers of America. UVa e-text center. 2005
• Translator for the Student Interpreter Service Initiative at the UVa Hospital, Fall 2004.
• Translator for Callaloo’s “Cuban Issue.” December 2000
• Founder and President of the Florida International University Poetry Club, 1998

Memberships

• Modern Language Association
• Caribbean Studies Association
• Institut des textes et manuscrits modernes (ITEM)

Languages

Human: Mastery of Spanish, French and Italian. Reading knowledge of German, Portuguese and Kreyol.
Machine: HTML, CSS, XSLT and XML.

References

• A. James Arnold, Professor Emeritus of French, University of Virginia
• Jahan Ramazani, Edgar F. Shannon, Jr. Professor of English, University of Virginia
• Jerome J. McGann, University Prof & John Stewart Bryan Prof Of English, University of Virginia
• Michael Levenson, Professor of English, University of Virginia
• Gregory G. Colomb, Professor of English, University of Virginia
• Anna Brickhouse, Associate Professor of English, University of Virginia
• Mrinalini Chakravorty, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia