Assistant Professor, Department of English and Program of African American and Africana Studies, University of Kentucky, 2019-present
Education
Doctor of Philosophy, English, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 2019
Dissertation: “Speculative Aesthetics: Time, Space, and the Black Subject in 20th and 21st Century African American Literature”
Women’s and Gender Studies Certificate
Dissertation Committee: Dr. Cheryl Wall, Dr. Evie Shockley, Dr. Brittney Cooper, Dr. Michelle Stephens (Director)
Master of Arts, English, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 2012
Master’s Thesis: “‘There Was Trouble Long Before I Was Aware of It’: Contemporary African American Women Writers, Discursive Redefinition, and the Speculative”
Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Angelyn Mitchell
Bachelor of Arts, English, Duke University, Durham, NC, 2008
Major: English
Publications
“Dhalgren’s Sexual Limits: A Dialogue between Regina Hamilton and Kirin Wachter-Grene.” The Black Scholar. Forthcoming.
“Can ‘Red Dead’ be Redeemed?: Race and Gameworld Contexts.” Surviving Whiteness in Games, special issue of Journal of Games Criticism, edited by Harrer, Sabine, et al. 2023.
Review of Howard Rambsy, Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2020. Journal of African American History. 2021.
“The Somatopic Black Female Body within Archipelagic Space and Time in Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed.” Human Contradictions in Octavia Butler's Work. Ed. Martin Japtok and Rafiki Jenkins. Springer Nature, 2020.
“With Literary Publications Like FIRE, Black Artists Have Been Keeping it AFROPUNK Since 1926.” AFROPUNK, 22 Feb. 2013.
Invited Lectures
Maine Humanities Council Reader’s Retreat Featured Speaker, 2023.
Maine Humanities Council Reader’s Retreat Featured Speaker, 2022.
University of Pittsburgh: Octavia Butler and Kinship: A Conversation with Dr. Regina Hamilton-Townsend. Guest Lecture, Catastrophes and Narrative graduate course, 2022.
University of Kentucky Martin Luther King Center: “The Flesh Made Digital: Representation of the Black Body in Video Games.” Carter G. Woodson Lecture Series, 2020.
University of Kentucky: “Race in Twenty-First Century Media.” Guest Lecture, WRD 410-001, 2020.
Teaching Experience
University of Kentucky
Undergraduate Courses
AAS 200: Introduction to African American Studies
AAS 400: Black Speculative Fiction
ENG 266: African American Literature II
AAS 400/ENG 460G: Black Speculative Fiction
ENG 368: Contemporary Black Voices
ENG 333: Literature in the Digital Age
ENG 369: African American Women’s Writing
Graduate Courses
ENG 656/771: Race, Humanity, and Humanness in African American Literature
ENG 753: Black Speculative Fiction
ENG 771: Contemporary African American Literature
Valencia College
HUM 2454: African American Humanities
ENC 1101: Freshman Composition 1
Rutgers University
English 358:363: 20th Century Literature and Culture: The Speculative and Social Critique in African American Literature
English 358:379: Black Women Writers: A Seat at the Table
English 355:202: Principles of Literary Study
English 355:101: Expository Writing 101
Awards
University of Kentucky Provost Outstanding Teaching Award, 2022
University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award, 2022
Professional Memberships
Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
Southern Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA)
Modern Language Association (MLA)
National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA)
American Studies Association (ASA)