Current Projects

“Transnational Digital Crossroads: Reconceptualizing Caribbean and Latinx Literary Studies”

My dissertation, “Transnational Digital Crossroads,” contributes to a growing body of scholarship that uses digital modes to repair the dominant narratives that have shaped Caribbean literary studies and its histories. I use digital methods to propose a revisionist theory of the Caribbean and a corresponding new approach to studying Caribbean and Latinx literature. Reflecting on the legacies of colonialism and the ensuing linguistic and cultural divisions, I argue for a more expansive, internally heterogeneous understanding of the Caribbean and its literary history and show how digital methods—as both tools and conceptual models—facilitate such an understanding. By drawing on conventional literary methods and digital methodologies, including mapping visualization, digital archiving, computational text analysis, and social media analysis, “Transnational Digital Crossroads” reveals under-acknowledged continuities and exchanges across Caribbean and Latinx literary, cultural, spatial, and linguistic identities.

The Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars’ Digital Archive

The ACWWS’ Digital Archive (acwwsdigitalarchive.org) is an open-access collection aimed at conserving the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars (ACWWS)’s institutional memory and documenting the influence of the cross-cultural connection among writers and scholars of the Caribbean. Due to the lack of support for women’s writing in the early period of Caribbean literature, and even today, with limited resources and academic labor for Caribbean communities, one of the benefits of preserving the Association’s archival knowledge is to demonstrate the importance of ACWWS in developing Caribbean women’s literary scholarship and communities in difficult conditions. This collection is also available through the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dloc.com/collections/iacwws).

​This project has received support from Digital Scholarship @ U-M and the Caribbean Digital Scholarship Collective.

Articles and Book Chapters

“Reimagining Caribbean Literary Studies through Data Visualizations: In the Same Boats and Visualizing Caribbean Literature.” (Under review) Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal 

This article examines the data visualizations of In the Same Boats, by Kaiama L. Glover and Alex Gil, and Visualizing Caribbean Literature, by Schuyler Esprit. These interactive, map-based visualizations explore the works and lives of Caribbean writers, poets, and other cultural figures. I argue that they offer ways to move beyond a narrow focus on periodization and broaden the inclusivity of authors and texts in Caribbean literary studies.

“Building Digital Ethnic Courses through Rhizomatic Mentoring Networks.” Co-authored with Alicia Doyen-Rodriguez. (Under review) Debates in the Digital Humanities 2028, University of Minnesota Press. Debates in the Digital Humanities print/digital book series.  

This chapter proposes that “rhizomatic mentoring networks” offer an equitable framework for building digital ethnic courses. We define these mentoring networks as collaborative, generative intellectual exchanges that extend beyond skills, professional development, and institutional infrastructure. We argue that they promote horizontal collaborations that challenge traditional academic hierarchies and encourage critical thinking about how DH tools are used so teachers and students can achieve care, accessibility, and co-learning.

“Ethics, Methodology, and the Work of Digitizing the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars Archive.” (Under review) archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis 

This article discusses the process of preserving and digitizing the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars (ACWWS) archive. I focus on the ethical, methodological, and infrastructure questions that have emerged while conserving this history, curating materials, and building the ACWWS’ Digital Archive. I also describe my work to establish ACWWS as a partner with the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) to ensure both broader visibility and long-term preservation and sustainability for this collection. Importantly, this essay asks us to rethink the field’s dominant forms of knowledge through conference work and to examine how digital archives can expand the ways we archive conferences.

“Establishing a Fixed Home: The Attempt at Identity Completion in Julia Alvarez’s ‘Antojos’ and Ana Menéndez’s ‘Her Mother’s House.’” Pathways: A Journal of Humanistic and  Social Inquiry, Vol. 1: Iss. 3, (2021): 1-11.

This paper examines how, in Julia Alvarez’s “Antojos” and Ana Menéndez’s “Her Mother’s House,” typically unbeknownst to the protagonists themselves, establishing a home regularly takes the form of securing what they perceive to be “wholeness” and “completion.” I argue that the texts reveal that the protagonists’ search for a fixed and static place to call home, derived from desires of identity completion, cannot be found, and rather, their place of arrival can solely exist in the ambiguity of language and memory. As such, the reader is prompted to understand that not having a traditional, essentialized notion of home to guide the protagonists frees them and allows them to embrace, rather than reject, their linguistic and spatial multiplicities.