Scholarship & Publications

“Switching Hats: Professionalizing Teacher Candidates Using Book Talks”

Betwixt and Between: Education for Young Adolescents, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Fall 2024). Link to PAPOMLE

This article describes an assignment in which teacher candidates are required to prepare and deliver book talks to one another in a course on young adult literature. It argues that book talks function as an effective bridge between the academic study of YA literature and the professional practice of teaching. This assignment helps them overcome tension and anxiety when imagining themselves teaching books that might be controversial.

“National Allegory in Teju Cole’s Open City”

European Journal of American Studies (EJAS), Vol. 19, No. 2 (Summer 2024). Link to article on EJAS

This article analyzes Teju Cole’s Open City as a political novel, arguing that Open City functions as a national allegory critical of the United States. This stance is facilitated by its portrayal of the protagonist Julius as suffering not a dissociative fugue but a dissociative amnesia, which I arrive at by using the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) V and a rereading of Ian Hacking to revise earlier scholarly interpretations of Julius as flâneur-fugueur.

“‘Of Indeterminate Blackness’: The DJ Aesthetics of Paul Beatty’s Slumberland”

Contemporary Literature, Vol. 63, No. 4 (2022), pp. 500–526. Link to article on JSTOR

This article takes Slumberland as a case study for understanding how Paul Beatty thinks beyond the logic of racial/post-racial while insisting on an artistic freedom aligned with theorizations of the post-black aesthetic. This article defines the novel’s DJ aesthetic; uncovers the politics embedded within that aesthetic; and realigns the novel and the narrator with the ethos of a post-black aesthetic.

“Paul Beatty”

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 579, edited by Eric Bargeron and Hollis Beach. Gale-Cengage, 2027, pp. 1–4, 115–119. Link to entry on Gale Academic OneFile

This entry consists of a biographical essay about Paul Beatty with sections devoted to his biography, major works, critical reception, selected critical essays by leading scholars, and an annotated bibliography to support further research.

“‘Know Thyself’: Education and Identity Fashioning in Atlanta and Dear White People”

Greater Atlanta: African American Satire Since Obama, edited by Derek C. Maus and James J. Donahue. University Press of Mississippi, 2024, pp. 108–124. Link to entry on JSTOR

This chapter analyzes how the TV series Atlanta and the film Dear White People satirize stereotypical conceptions of Blackness. The article historicizes the series and film in relation to racial uplift ideology, respectability politics, and education, with reference to Princeton alums Mellody Hobson and Michelle Obama.

“Teaching Literature and Big Ideas as a Conversation”

LiberLit 13: Humanities at the Crossroads. Nihon University. Setagaya City, Tokyo, Japan. June 13, 2026.

“COIL Course Design and Challenges: Ecocriticism in Global Context”

12th annual Conference on Global Higher Education (CGHE). Lakeland University Japan. Ryogoku, Tokyo, Japan. June 6, 2026.

“Dear White People, Respectability Politics, and Black Students at PWIs”

55th NeMLA Annual Convention: Surplus. Tufts University. Boston, MA. March 9, 2024.

“Creating a Minor in Environmental Studies”

Regional Science Consortium 19th Annual Research Symposium. Tom Ridge Environmental Center, Erie, PA. November 9, 2023.

“Student-Centered Discussions Using Socratic Circles”

57th NeMLA Annual Convention. La Salle University. Pittsburgh, PA. March 8, 2026.

“Book Proposals for Edited Collections”

57th NeMLA Annual Convention. Pittsburgh, PA. March 6, 2026.

“Publishing in Scholarly Journals: Behind the Scenes”

57th NeMLA Annual Convention. Pittsburgh, PA. March 5, 2026.

“In-Class Presentation Activities”

Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL). Gannon University. April 24, 2025.