Biography
I am an Associate Professor of English in my 22nd year at Penn State Greater Allegheny. My research focuses on postcolonial studies, and twentieth-century literature and film. After earning my PhD in 20th-century literature and critical theory from the University of Missouri, I came to PSUGA in the Fall of 2001. I teach composition and professional writing, creative writing, professional editing, 20th-century world literature and film theory, and postcolonial studies centered on the transatlantic basin (Britain, West Africa, Caribbean [especially reggae & Rastafarian culture], and American South). I also have served as Adviser & Publisher for the campus review of literary and visual arts, ABSENCE, since 2002. I am an active researcher of the literary and film topics I teach, and have published articles in several scholarly, peer-reviewed journals, among them: The South Atlantic Review, the minnesota review, College Literature, Left Curve, (Re-)turn: A Journal of Lacanian Studies, and Cinema Journal.
Since 2012, I have published 4 book chapters: one on Peter Jackson’s King Kong in a collection, Hollywood’s Africa Since 1994 (Ohio UP; edited by MaryEllen Higgins); a second on Tarantino’s Django Unchained and the original Django by Sergio Corbucci for a book on the “international” western (Routledge); thirdly, on Aldous Huxley’s use of evolutionary theory in Brave New World in The Individual & Utopia (Ashgate; edited by Cameron Ellis & Clint Jones); and, fourthly, an interpretation of the roles of power and family in George Orwell’s 1984 in a Critical Insights volume on the novel (edited by Thomas Horan). I am finishing a book on the first Jamaican feature film ever made, “The Harder They Came: Reading Representations of Rudies, Rastafari, and Reggae in Jamaica’s First Feature Film.”
Teaching Interests:
Postcolonial Studies, Film History & Theory, 20th-Century Literature, Slave Narratives
Area(s) of Expertise:
Postcolonial Studies, Film History & Theory, 20th-Century Literature, Slave Narratives
Research Interests
Reggae music and culture, Rastafari, Westerns & Spaghetti Westerns, Slave narratives
Publications
“The Harder They Came: Cultural and Political Histories of Rastafari and Reggae in Jamaica’s First Feature Film.” (Book manuscript in progress.)
“‘We are Different from All the Oligarchies of the Past’: On Power and the Primal Family in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four” in “Critical Approaches to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Ed. Thomas Horan. New York: Salem P., 2016. 128-139.
“From Django to Django Unchained—Love Narratives in the Global South” in The Western in the Global South. Routledge Advances in Film Studies ser. Ed. MaryEllen Higgins, Rita Keresztesi, and Dana Oscherwitz. New York: Routledge, 2015. 60-78.
“‘Between the Utopian and the Primitive Horns of His Dilemma’: Aldous Huxley’s Selection of Peter Kropotkin over T. H. Huxley for the Savage’s ‘Third Alternative’ in Brave New World” in The Individual and Utopia: A Multidisciplinary Study of Humanity and Perfection. Ed. Cameron Ellis and Clint Jones. Burlington: Ashgate, 2015. 67-83.
Presentations:
"Tarantino’s Use of Horror Genre Aesthetics to Represent and Re-Present Chattel Slavery in Django Unchained" presented at the Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association Annual Conference via ZOOM. 13 November 2021.
"Cowboys and Zombies: Representing White Supremacy in Sergio Corbucci’s Django (1966)" presented at the Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association Annual Conference. Pittsburgh, PA, 8 November 2019. [paper nominated for Best Paper Presentation Award.]
"Slavocracy and Slavtopia: The Utopian Aims of the American Slave Dystopia," presennted at The Society for Utopian Studies Annual Conference, Memphis, TN. 10 November 2017.
“Defining Citizenship and Civic Legitimacy: The Roots of ‘Birtherism,’ ‘Nativism,’ and ‘Birthright Citizenship’ in the American Slave State,” presented at the National Communication Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, 12 November 2016.
“Critical Approaches to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four,” presented at the Society for Utopian Studies Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, 7 November 2015.
Education
Ph.D. English, University of Missouri (Columbia, MO), 1991
M.A. English, University of New Hampshire (Durham, NH), 1990
B.A. English, Drake University (Des Moines, IA), 1988
Papers and Presentations
"Cowboys and Zombies: Representing White Supremacy in Sergio Corbucci’s Django (1966)." Mid-Atlantic American and Popular Studies Association Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, November, 2019. [Nominated for the Anderson Award for best paper presentation.]
“Defining Citizenship and Civic Legitimacy: The Roots of ‘Birtherism,’ ‘Nativism,’ and ‘Birthright Citizenship’ in the American Slave State,” presented at the National Communication Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, 12 November 2016.
“Critical Approaches to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four,” presented at the Society for Utopian Studies Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, 7 November 2015.
“Analysis of the Tropes of ‘Babylon’ and ‘Zion’ in the Reggae Soundtrack to The Harder They Come (1972): On the place of Utopia and Dystopia in Rastafari,” presented at the Society for Utopian Studies Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada, 24 October 2014.
“The Utopian and Dystopian Dimensions of the Plantation as Represented in Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012) and the ‘Southern’ version of the (Anti-)Western,” presented at the Society for Utopian Studies Annual Conference, Charleston, SC, 16 November 2013.