CV

Education

• Ph.D. English; Certificate, Women’s Studies, Emory University, 2007
• B.A. English, Mount Holyoke College, magna cum laude, 2002

Academic Positions

• Associate Professor: School of Literature, Media, & Communication, Georgia Tech (2017-)
• Associate Professor: Department of English, Auburn University (2013-2017)
• Assistant Professor: Department of English, Auburn University (2007-2013)
• Instructor: Department of English, Spelman College (2006-2007)

Selected Publications

Books

• The Crunk Feminist Collection. Co-edited collection with Brittney C. Cooper and Robin M. Boylorn. (New York: The Feminist Press, 2017).
• Sycorax’s Daughters, co-edited fiction collection with Kinitra D. Brooks and Linda Addison. (San Francisco: Cedar Grove Press, 2017).
•  Close Kin and Distant Relatives: The Paradox of Respectability in Black Women’s Literature (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014). Reviewed in Callaloo (Winter 2015).

Articles and Book Chapters

• “‘Everything is real. It’s just not as you see it’: Imagination, Utopia, and Afrofuturist Feminism in Octavia E. Butler’s ‘The Book of Martha.’” Accepted and forthcoming in Afrofuturism 2.0: The Black Speculative Arts Movement: Black Futurity, Art+Design, edited by Reynaldo Anderson and Clint Fluker, Lexington Books. Winter 2018.
• “More than Human: Black Feminisms of the Future in Jewelle Gomez’s The Gilda Stories” in The Black Scholar, 46:2, Summer 2016, pp. 33-45.
• “‘Sisters separated for much too long’: Women’s Friendship and Power in Toni Morrison’s ‘Recitatif,’” in Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 32:1, Spring 2013, pp. 159-180.
• “The Stage Hip Hop Feminism Built: A New Directions Essay,” Co-authored with Brittney C. Cooper and Aisha Durham, in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 38:3, Spring 2013, pp. 721-737.
• “A Past Not Pure, But Stifled: Vexed Legacies of Leadership in Toni Morrison’s Love,” in South Atlantic Quarterly, 112:2, Spring 2013, pp. 319-338.
• “Black Girls are from the Future: Afrofuturist Feminism in Octavia E. Butler’s Fledgling,” in WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 40: 3&4, Fall/Winter 2012, pp. 146-166.
• “Stunned Throats and Vexed Voices: Ambivalence and Intertextuality in The Bluest Eye and Push,” The Griot: The Journal of African American Studies, 31:1, Spring 2012, pp. 58-70.

Selected Public Scholarship & Social Commentary

• “Black Bodies at Play Part 2,” Peabody Essex Museum, January 2018
• “Black Bodies at Play Part 1,” Peabody Essex Museum, January 2018
• “Weighing Justice with a Jury of Her Peers,” Longreads, September 2017
• “The Disturbing Truth About the Republican Speeches on Safety,”Cosmopolitan.com, July 19, 2016
• “What Abigail Fisher’s Legal Battle Reveals About Civil Rights in This Country,”Cosmopolitan.com, June 24, 2016
• “Bill Clinton Knew Exactly What He Was Doing With That Tirade Against Black Lives Matter,” Cosmopolitan.com, April 8, 2016
• About.com, Women’s Issues Expert (2014 – 2016)
• Crunk Feminist Collective, Co-founder, Blogger (2010-present)

Research and Teaching Interests

• Afrofuturism and the Black Speculative Arts Movement
• Gender and Black Feminist Theory
• 20^th and 21^st Century African American and Caribbean Literature and Theory

Selected Awards, Grants, & Fellowships

•  PULSE Community Building Award, Harvard Black Law Student Association, 2017
• Advisor, American Library Association’s Great Stories Book Club (NEH Funded), 2017
• Digital Integrative Liberal Arts Center Fellow, Georgia Institute of Technology, Spring 2017
• Dream Defender, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, 2015
• Summer Departmental Support, English Department, Auburn University, 2013
• Outstanding Teaching & Research in Women’s Studies Award, Auburn University, 2011
• Title VI Competitive Summer Salary Assistance Program Grant, Auburn University, 2008