Ph.D. in Romance Studies, Duke University 2025
Certificates: African and African American Studies; Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies; and College Teaching
Proposed Dissertation: “Monstrous Mothers: The Womb as Grammar in the Francophone Black Atlantic”
Committee: Felwine Sarr and Dr. Annette Joseph-Gabriel (co-chairs); Dr. Walter Mignolo; Dr. Jennifer Nash
M.A. in Romance Studies, Duke University 2023
GPA: 3.90
M.A. in French Studies, New York University 2019
Thesis: “The Polemic of Frantz Fanon and the Problem of Universalism”
GPA: 3.79, degree awarded with distinction
M.A. in Comparative Literature, New York University 2018
Thesis: “Performativity, Poetics, and Parole: Language and Resistance in Aimé Césaire’s A Tempest”
GPA: 3.96
B.A. in Comparative Literature and French, New York University 2017
Minor: Creative Writing
Thesis: “Decolonizing Language: The Négritude Movement as a Poetic Appropriation of the French Language”
Major GPA: 4.00, Overall GPA: 3.83, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, with honors
French and Francophone literatures, philosophies, and arts; cultural, political, and intellectual history of the Caribbean; Middle Passage studies; Black Studies; literary, decolonial, feminist and queer theories; empire studies
"''Ou libéré?' Are you free, my daughter?': The Abject Maternal in Edwidge Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory." 2025 MLA Annual Convention. Special Session: "Conjuring Afterlives: Reverberations of Slavery, Colonialism, and Empire in Caribbean Fiction." New Orleans, LA. 2025 (upcoming).
"Né-cri-tude: Ou, Le Cri selon Aimé Césaire." Journée d'étude: Cri dans les arts du spectacle et les lettres (approche thématique). L'Université de Toulouse Jean Jaurès. Toulouse, France. 2024 (upcoming).
“Monstrous Mothers: Womb as Grammar in the Black Atlantic.” Northeast Modern Language Association 55th Convention: SURPLUS. Tufts University. Boston, MA. 2024.
“The Cri in Maryse Condé’s I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association 95 Conference. (In)Security: The Future of Literature and Language Studies. Atlanta, GA. 2023.
“The ‘Cri’ and the Caribbean: Language in Decolonial Francophone Literature.” Twenty-first International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities. Sorbonne Université, Faculté des Lettres. Paris, France. 2023.
“Nostalgia and Belonging in Maryse Condé’s Heremakhonon.” 27th Carolina Conference for Romance Studies. UNC-Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill, NC. 2023
“Maternity, Memory and the Middle Passage: The Abject Maternal in Évelyne Trouillot’s Rosalie, l’infâme and Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory.” GSF Graduate Scholars Colloquium. Duke University. Durham, NC. 2022.
Article Publication: “The ‘French’ in French and Francophone Studies.” Romanic Review 114:3 (December 2023). 601-608. 2023
In this polemical essay, I share my understanding of, and issues with, the disciplinary contours of French and Francophone Studies. Furthermore, I share my thoughts on upcoming challenges to the field, as well as its strengths.
Essay Publication: “Né-cri-tude; Ou, Le Cri et Aimé Césaire.” Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Languages. 2024 (in review)
This paper considers the resonances and divergences between the “cri,” or scream, in the works of Aimé Césaire and in the theoretical archive of the “cri"
in the Black Atlantic. In particular, I trace the occurrences of the “cri” in Césaire’s œuvre and question what his contributions to the archive of the “cri”, despite a literary and theoretical context that has evolved and surpassed Césaire’s today.
Thesis: “The Polemic of Frantz Fanon and the Problem of Universalism.” 2019
This paper investigates the tension between universality and particularism present in Fanon’s works and legacy. While many biographies reduce Fanon to an Algerian freedom fighter or the analyst of the Algerian war, and therefore understand Les Damnés de la terre as a treatise on the Algerian case, I focus on Les Damnés de la terre to reveal the thorough and constant appeal to universalism present in Fanon’s work.
Reader: Herrick Chapman
Thesis: “Performativity, Poetics, and Parole: Language and Resistance in Aimé Césaire’s A Tempest.” 2018
This paper articulates the intricacies and undercurrents of a decolonial relationship to language, especially in A Tempest by Aimé Césaire—who is recognized as an eminent spokesperson for Nègritude—and the works of Édouard Glissant—who is often interpreted as a critic of Nègritude.
Readers: Avital Ronell, Manthia Diawara
Honors Thesis: “La décolonisation par les mots: La Négritude comme une appropriation poétique noire de la langue française” 2017
This thesis reads the works of theNégritude movement and finds that these authors, in particular Frantz Fanon, Léon-Gontran Damas, and Aimé Césaire, reveal and problematize the way language is used as a tool of colonization by oppressors and a medium of resistance by the formerly colonized.
Thesis Committee: Avital Ronell, Jean Michael Dash, Henriette Goldwyn
"Framing the Francophone: The Seen/Unseen in Contemporary Graphic Novels." 56th Annual Northeast Modern Language Association Convention. La Salle University. Philadelphia, PA. 2025 (upcoming).
Spring 2025 Undergraduate FREN 204: Advanced Intermediate French Language and Culture
Fall 2024 Undergraduate FREN 327: Feminisms in French
Spring 2024 Undergraduate WRIT 101: Afrofuturism in Popular Culture
Fall 2023 Undergraduate FREN 302: Cultural and Literary Perspectives
Fall 2023 Undergraduate FREN 327: Decolonizing Language (cancelled, low enrollment)
Summer 2021-24 Graduate French for Reading Purposes
Fall 2021 Undergraduate FREN 203: Intermediate French Language and Culture
Spring 2021 Undergraduate FREN 101: Elementary French 1
Spring 2022 Undergraduate FREN 428S: Reading French Literature. IOR: Anne-Gaelle Saliot.
Fall 2020 Undergraduate FREN 101: Elementary French 1. IOR: Germain Choffart.
Committee for an Anti-Racist Romance Studies, Founding Member Oct 2020-Present
Launched the Romance Studies department’s anti-racist initiative in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020. Co-created two subcommittees—the former to write and publish an official statement on behalf of our department, the second to gather demographic data related to graduate student, staff, and faculty makeup—whose findings were to be presented at a department town hall. Other goals included creating an anonymous alumni survey to self-report experiences with racial bias in the department and to give suggestions for transforming department culture.
Romance Studies Graduate Student Liaison Committee Aug 2019-July 2022
Called regular meetings for students to discuss interests, concerns, and activity proposals. Attended the portions of faculty meetings not limited to regular rank faculty. Met at least once per semester with the DGS to relay graduate sudent concerns and proposals. Organized and participated in annual graduate student recruitment activities.
English native language
French full professional proficiency
Haitian Creole read/write with intermediate proficiency
Spanish basic competence, native
Farsi basic competence, native
2023-24 Duke Global Student Research Award for Conference Presentation
2023 SAMLA 95 Harper Fund Travel Grant
2020-22 Duke Graduate School Summer Research Fellowship
2018-19 NYU Yves-Andre' Istel Fellowship
2017 NYU Prix Jindrich Zezula, presented for best honors thesis in French
2017 NYU University Honors Scholar
2016-17 NYU CAS Dean’s Honor List
2014-15 NYU Liberal Studies Dean’s Honors List
2023 South Atlantic Modern Language Association
2023 Northeast Modern Language Association
2017 Modern Language Association
2017 American Comparative Literature Association
2017 Phi Beta Kappa