About
I am a scholar and educator of twentieth- and twenty-first-century American/African American literature and critical prison studies. I am particularly interested in studying the ways in which U.S. authors depict and criticize the prison industrial complex throughout the era that we now call “The Era of Mass Incarceration.” As the United States leads the world in incarceration rates, I ask (and encourage my students to ask): How do authors trace the development of mass incarceration in their writings? What communities are most vulnerable to state violence? And, what can we, as readers, learn about the continuities between mass incarceration and other historical modes of domination, such as slavery, colonialism, and segregation? My current research focuses on how Black women writers in particular examine Black vulnerability to state violence, surveillance, and incarceration through their works. This project is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). In the classroom, I foster an environment of engaged critical discourse of literary study, literary history, and its relevant historical context. I provide students with the tools to work together with texts to see and communicate connections between the literary worlds of the book and the worlds in which the author’s lived in order to understand relationships between individuals and the state.
Experience
Research
My research and emerging scholarship centers on African American literature and literary history and their intersections with the rise of the U.S. carceral state. I examine how works of African American literature produced by incarcerated and non-incarcerated writers depict the various social control methods of the prison-industrial complex in order to gain a better understanding of how the United States became the world’s leader in imprisonment. My research prioritizes two interrelated questions: How and why does literature operate as a medium through which the carceral state can be theorized and resisted? How do writers’ use of literary genres provide new lenses for examining the prison-industrial complex?
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Teaching
All of my teaching approaches are focused on cultivating the communal expression of knowledge. For me, helping students express and embrace their own critical voices is an equal goal to their learning the reading material. Practically, this means that in every classroom setting, I strive to foster a scholarly dialogue rather than a teacher-centered lecture. I often incorporate an open-question model to invite student-centered expression and inquiry and collaborative textual analysis. As a teacher, I cherish the privilege to support and spur on the communal experience of learning. To facilitate a love of critical thinking and social engagement among students in university and prison classrooms, I cultivate multi-contextual engagements with literature, invite student leadership in learning activities and curricular development, and encourage social justice inquiry.
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service
As a teacher-scholar dedicated to fostering meaningful diversity, I strive to make the university a welcoming space for all kinds of learning and engagement. In 2016, I co-founded University of Mississippi OUTGrads, an on-campus organization dedicated to fostering community and institutional support for LGBT-identifying graduate and professional students and their allies. In serving as the Vice President, I organized Allies training sessions within the English department for faculty who were interested in gaining the knowledge and resources to support LGBT students and colleagues. I served on the social media coordinating team for the Making and Unmaking Mass Incarceration Conference held on December 4-6 2019. At this conference, I also coordinated the abolitionist print literature displays—including chapbooks, zines, newspapers, and anthologies—to connect conference attendees to the voices working to fight for freedom from the inside.
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Research Interests
20th and 21st Century U.S. Literature
Critical Prison Studies
African American Literature
Feminist and Black Feminist Theory
Education
University of Mississippi
Ph.D. Literature
2020
Florida Gulf Coast University
M.A. English
2014
Florida Gulf Coast University
B.A. English
2012