My research and teaching interests are profoundly interdisciplinary. In the courses I teach as well as in my writing, I investigate how literary genres such as autobiography, short fiction, and the novel intersect with, and mutually inform, scientific discourse, nutritionism, popular culture, or museums as sites of cultural performance.
I am a Caribbeanist by training, and a literary food studies scholar by vocation. My first book, Exhibiting Slavery, considers how postmodern Caribbean historical novels about slavery function as museums by curating artwork and other objects within their pages.
My second book, The Immigrant Kitchen, analyzes the life writing subgenre of the food memoir with recipes, to think through how the trauma of immigration is inherited down the generations.
My current book project examines those moments when Americans of Caribbean descent address themselves to the American people to share the lessons of their immigrant upbringing.
I am also working on two digital humanities project analyzing reader engagement with formal reading groups through GoodRreads.com, and contrasting the claims I make about food memoirs with recipes with reader feedback on the same archive.
Her current research focuses on how prominent Americans of Caribbean descent (think Lin Manuel Miranda, AOC, and Kamala Harris) are making the case for including their voices in shaping the future of American culture and politics.
Research: Non-fiction literature; Interconnections between art, history, and literature; scientific discourse; food journalism; sustainability
Research Area:
- Human Environment Interaction and Sustainability
- Environment in the Arts and Humanities
Research Interests:
- Caribbean and Caribbean American literature, postmodernism, food studies, memoir, world literature, comparative ethnic American literature.
Subject Area: American Studies
Research + Teaching Interests
- Caribbean literature; interconnections between art, history, literature and performance; depictions of slavery in literature and museums; national and cultural identities; food and cultural memory
Regional Expertise
