Biography

I was born and raised in Tours, France. I went to the University of Tours for my undergraduate and graduate studies. Before heading to Madison, WI for a MA in Afro-American studies and a Ph.D. in History, I taught French as a second language at the University of Pittsburgh and at CU Boulder, worked in banking, and worked at a middle-school in southern France. In Madison, I grew interested in topics related to the Caribbean, black activism, the Black diaspora, and visual culture. Between 2019 and 2023, I held positions in American History at Bates college and Africana Studies at WPI.

Research Interests

My work builds on the scholarship of African diaspora, African American, and Caribbean studies. My book manuscript, Blackness in Motion: Haitian Intellectuals and Black Internationalism in the 20^th Century, explores the varied and continually evolving theme of black heterogeneity in a global context. More specifically, it examines Haitian engagement with pan-Africanism from the first Pan-African Conference at the turn of the 20th century to the Duvalier dictatorships (1957-1986). In my research I found that while in Haiti early black diasporic activism emerged as a direct response to collective racial oppression such as European colonialism or the U.S. Occupation (1915-1934), intellectuals in exile during the Duvalier era developed a new form of racial consciousness shaped by forced displacement and encounters with other black alterities. I argue that this new black diasporic identity negotiated geographically stemmed from their prolonged individual lived experiences in post-colonial Africa and alliances with other people of African descent in the context of global black liberation. As such, I show that Haitian intellectuals on the move challenged post-colonial structures, imperialism, and global racism through political and cultural practices while refashioning themselves within a diasporic imaginary shaped by their experience as members of the black diaspora. Such practices included the production of novels, essays, newspapers, and plays in exilic places like Leopoldville, New York and Montreal. My other ongoing research projects include the works of Caribbean visual artists Renold Laurent and Jean-François Boclé.

Publications

“Returning the colonial gaze: the black female body in Angèle E. Essamba’s photography.” Routledge, Locating African European Studies: Interventions—Intersections—Coalitions (2019).