Education

Rutgers University - Ph.D., 2011

Fields of Interest

Modern France and Europe, Global history, Atlantic and Caribbean history, Intellectual and cultural history, historical theory

Courses taught

Modern France
Modern Britain
History of the Caribbean
The World since 1945
World Civilization II
Black Atlantic
Philosophy and Theory of History
Modern European Historiography

Publications

• "'It is Too Early... or Too Late:' Frantz Fanon's Legacy in the French Caribbean," Karib: The Nordic Journal of Caribbean Studies 2 (2015).
• "Race, Citizenship, and Antillean Student Activism in Postwar France, 1946-1968," French Historical Studies 37:2 (Spring 2014)

Recent talks

• "'Everywhere there are Sierre Maistres:' Specters of Third-World Revolution in the French Antilles, 1959-1975" - International Dissidence Conference, Goethe University Frankfurt, March 2017
• "Restaging the Archive: History, knowledge, and the black subject in the Institut Martiniquais d'étude's Histoire de Nègre," - Winthrop-King Institute, Florida State, October 2016.
• "Reading the 'Other American' Archive: Literature, Anticolonial Activism, and the Histoire de nègre in 1970s Martinique," - Society for French Historical Studies, March 2016.
• "Staging the Other America: The Institut Martiniquais d'études and Histoire de nègre in their intellectual and political contexts," - Modern Language Association, January 2016.
• "Colonial Violence and Diasporic Consciousness in the French Caribbean, 1960-1975," - University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, May 2015.

Current Projects

• After Négritude: The Cultural Politics of Place in Postcolonial France and the Caribbean: My current monograph draws on research conducted in France and the Caribbean to rethink histories of decolonization as well the cultural and intellectual history of modern Europe. Through a close study of how French Antilleans negotiated their political and cultural identity in postwar France, my project shows how decolonization profoundly transformed ideas of nation, culture, citizenship, and the self, even when, in the case of Martinique and Guadeloupe, it did not lead to national sovereignty. Their writings, grounded in European traditions and debates yet reflective of the particularities of Antillean life, resonated far beyond the Caribbean, transforming intellectual life and capturing a global audience that ranged from black power activists in inner city America to philosophers on Paris' Left Bank.
• History From an Abyss: Histoire de Nègre translation and performance project: In partnership with Dr. Emily Sahakian of the University of Georgia, I am translating, editing, and annotating the play, Histoire de nègre. A collaboratively composed and performed work, the play was performed around Martinique in 1971-2 by members of the Institut Martiniquais d'Etudes, a research and teaching institute founded by the Martinican writer Edouard Glissant. The play uses avant-garde techniques and mise-en-scène to capture "three moments" of Martinique's colonial history – enslavement and colonization; liberation; and neocolonialism – and to educate Martinicans to their place in the wider American experience. Dr. Sahakian and I are translating the text from French and Creole into English, preparing a scholarly edition for publication, and working to produce and stage this unique work.