Writing

Books

Stumbling Blocks and Other Unfinished Work. (UGA Press 2023).

This volume expands and contextualizes the unpublished and unfinished works of the late African American writer, Delores Phillips. It paints a broader picture of Phillips not just as a novelist, but poet and short story writer as well.

Making Black Selves: Imagining Life Beyond Survival

By surveying African American literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, I investigate the intricate, sometimes contradictory, and potentially liberating ways Black authors—by centering, negotiating, and (re)defining conceptions of disability—have challenged liberal humanist tradition in search of alternative forms of subjectivity that make space for and cultivate Black living.

Scholarly Articles

“’Where’s the dummy?’: Deafness, Race, and Labor in Delores Phillips’s The Darkest Child.” The Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, Vol. 15. 2 (2021): 187-202.

“‘Don’t nobody wanna be locked up’: The Black Disabled Veteran in Toni Morrison’s Sula and August Wilson’s Fences.” The College Language Association Journal, Vol. 64. 1 (2021): 147-165.

“Madness, Melancholia, and Suicide in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees.” The South Carolina Review Vol. 50. 1 (2017): 108-123.

“Everything Gray”: Polygenism and Racial Perception in Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno.” The Journal of American Culture Vol. 40. 2 (2017): 169-177.

“Zora Neale Hurston’s Racial Politics in Jonah’s Gourd Vine.” The Explicator Vol. 73. 3 (2015): 226-228.

Blogs, Podcasts, and Popular Writing

“Building my Wikipedia Confidence.” Wiki Education, Wikipedia, 16 Feb 2021.

As a guest contributor for Wiki Education, I relay both my failures and successes using the Wikipedia project as a class assignment.

Disability in African American Literature and History,” Disability History Association Podcast, Episode 22. Caroline Lieffers, host.

In this episode, I discuss Delores Phillips’ novel, The Darkest Child as well as other intersections between race and disability in my research.

“Autobiography of James L. Smith” and “Unspeakable: The Story of Junius Wilson” for Disability Experiences: Memoirs, Autobiographies, and Other Personal Narratives edited by Tom Couser and Susannah Mintz. Gale, 2019.

“Performance.” Encyclopedia of Race and Racism. Ed. Patrick L. Mason. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2013.