Graduate Students
Jonathan Basile
Education: BA, English & Comparative Literature, Columbia University
Major Interests: Deconstruction, Modernist Literature, Irony, Science and Technology Studies, Evolutionary Theory
Working Languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek
Publications: Tar for Mortar: "The Library of Babel" and the Dream of Totality (book), "Misreading Generalised Writing: From Foucault to Speculative Realism and New Materialism", Oxford Literary Review, 40(1), pp. 20–37
Jacqui Brown
Education: BA, Political Science with an Art History concentration, Columbia University, 2007.
Major Interests: Caribbean literature, history, and philosophy; Art and Film; Trauma and labor; fugitivity and marronage; opacity and camouflage; Afro-Pessimism; anticolonial and queer theories; Black theology and faith; and Black love
Natalie Catasús
Education:
M.A. Visual & Critical Studies, California College of the Arts, 2015
M.F.A. Writing (Poetry), California College of the Arts, 2015
B.A. (Hons.) Literature / Spanish Language & Culture, New College of Florida, 2011
Major Interests: Cuban and Caribbean literature and visual culture; postcolonial theory; poetry and poetics; oral history; migration studies; trauma and memory studies; pedagogy
Working Languages: English, Spanish, French
Select Publications: Flight, Volumes Volumes Press (2017); Poems in Tupelo Quarterly (2017), VOLT (2016), Denver Quarterly (2015), and Jai-Alai Magazine (2013)
Amir Hussain
Tiara Jackson
tiara.raven.marie.jackson@emory.edu
Education: B.A. Psychology and Multicultural Trauma, Mills College '15
Major Interests: Black Feminists Theory and Psychoanalysis. Black spirituality, performance, and cultural production as an insistence on everyday living despite the looming presence of Black Death.
Working Languages: English, French, Spanish
Andrew Kaplan
Education:
MA English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
BA (Hons.) English, State University of New York at Oswego
Major Interests:
Black Expressive Culture, Afropessimism, Radical Black Feminism, Black & Political Theology, Continental Philosophy (of Religion), Agamben, (Lacanian) Psychoanalysis, Deconstruction, Literary Modernisms, Film & TV, (Black) Anarchist Theory
Project Description:
My project posits and develops “the Black messianic” as a paradigm of allegorical and liturgical reading that excavates the politico-theological signatures of Blackness and anti-Blackness in modernity. Such reading aspires to speculatively build a way for non-Black people to iterably practice a kenosis of their desire for Humanity and the World in fidelity to the Black radical demand for abolishing both in the name of gratuitous messianic freedom. I have developed this project in published and forthcoming work on Afropessimism and theoretical engagements with the Apostle Paul, Frantz Fanon and non-philosophy, Richard Wright's novella "The Man Who Lived Underground," Alex Garland's film Annihilation, and the streaming series Black Mirror.
Working Languages:
English, French
Publications:
Notes Toward (Inhabiting) the Black Messianic in Afro-pessimism's Apocalyptic Thought, The Comparatist, Vol. 43 (2019): 68-89.
The Apocalyptic Tabula Rasa of Black Messianic Invention: Black Faith and Pure Means in Fanonism’s Insurrectionist Christo-Fiction, Oraxiom: A Journal of Non-Philosophy, Vol. 1.1 (2020): 105-121.
Richard Wright’s Anagrammatical Allegory, or Liturgical Reading, or Inhabiting the Black Messianic in "The Man Who Lived Underground,” Political Theology 22:4 (2021): 279-295.
On the Annihilation of the Human's Fundamental Fantasy of Life: Toward an Anagrammatical Liturgy of Black Messianic Death, The Comparatist, Vol. 45 (2021): 41-63.
Joe Larios
Education:
M.A. Philosophy, Louisiana State University
A.B. Modern Culture & Media, Brown University
Major Interests:
Environmental ethics and politics, eco-phenomenology, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, feminism
Working Languages:
English, Spanish, French, German
Publications:
"Bringing Levinas Down to Earth: A Jonasian Reading of the Face," Environmental Philosophy 15.2 (2018): 295-316.
"Levinas and the Problem of Predation: From Fraternity to Kinship." SubStance 48.1 (2019): 26-41.
“Levinas and the Primacy of the Human.” Ethics and the Environment 24, no. 2 (2019): 1-22.
Francisco (Cisco) Lopez
Education: B.A. in Philosophy and English, Florida International University (2018). Certificate in Exile Studies, Florida International University (2018).
Major Interests: deconstruction, cultural studies, phenomenology, embodiment, postcolonial theory, affect theory
Working Languages: English, Spanish, French
Isabelle Meyer-Ensass
isabelle.meyer-ensass@emory.edu
Education: M.A. Literature in a World Context, University of Aberdeen, Scotland
Major Interests:
Deconstruction (i.e. Blanchot and Nancy), gender ontology (i.e. genderqueerness), aesthetics, visual- and performance studies (i.e. drag, fashion and photography), psychoanalysis, 19th-20th century German- and French Literature, trauma and disability
Working Languages:
English, German, French
Dez Miller
Education:
B.A. French and Creative Writing, New York University, 2011
M.S.W. (Health Policy), Washington University in St. Louis, 2016
M.F.A. Writing (Fiction), Boston University, 2019
Major Interests: eco-criticism and ecological theories, queer theory, postcolonialism, questions of relatedness and kinship, contemporary literature, late Victorian literature
Working Languages: English, French, Spanish
Brendan Moore
Education: B.A. (Hons.), French and English, Coe College
Major Interests: Psychoanalysis, feminist theory, queer theory, Francophone literature, 19th and 20th century French literature, literatures of the Americas, HIV/AIDS and literatures of disease and contamination.
Working Languages: French, Spanish
Rachael Orbeta
Education: B.A. in English, Florida International University (2019).
Major Interests: Cultural studies, phenomenology, postcolonial theory, Latinx literature, women and gender studies, feminist theory
Working Languages: English, Spanish, French
Eric Flohr Reynolds
Education:
M.A. Philosophy, New School for Social Research, 2014
B.A. Philosophy, George Mason University, 2012
Major Interests: 19th and 20th Century Continental Philosophy, Hermeneutics, Critical Theory, Psychoanalysis, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, Technology and Media Theory, the Ethics of Aesthetics and the Aesthetics of Ethics
Working Languages: English, German
Meike Robaard
Education:
M.A. North American Studies, University of Groningen (The Netherlands), 2021
B.A. American Studies, University of Groningen (The Netherlands), 2019
Honors degree (B.A.) in Philosophy, University of Groningen, 2019
Major Interests: critical theory, posthumanism, biopolitics, 19C and 20C literature, philosophy & visual culture, science and technology studies, feminist theory, cyborgs/robots/monsters, embodiment, women and gender studies, materiality, text/texture/textile
Working Languages: English, French, German, Dutch
Publications:
“Cyborg Incorporated: Mechanics, Aesthetics, and Cyborg Narrativity in David Cronenberg’s Videodrome and eXistenZ.” LLIDS: Language, Literature and Interdisciplinary Studies. 3.2: “Body, Mind, and the Posthuman: A Corollary to Postmodern Thought” (2020): 18-46.
Melinda Robb
Education: BA (Hons.) English and Contemporary Studies, University of King’s College (2010); Certificate from Psychoanalytic Core Program, Emory University Psychoanalytic Institute (2018)
Major Interests: 20th and 21st century theory and literature; queer theory; queer/women’s memoir; autotheory; psychoanalysis (clinical and theoretical); literatures of the Americas; world literatures; modernism; feminist theory
Thesis Project & Title: “Because I Said So: Idiomatic Insistence and Queer, Feminist Refusal in Woolf, Philip, Nelson, and Lispector”
Working Languages: French, Spanish, German
Violeta Ruiz Espigares
Education: B.A. Philosophy/German, Grinnell College, 2015.
Major Interests: Psychoanalysis and deconstruction; Early Modern Spanish literature, religion, and surveillance, especially the figure of the marrano and secrets; and the element of blood and its effects in law, philosophy, and literature.
Working Languages: Spanish, French, German, Latin
Agnes Sastre-Rivera
Education: BA, English Literature with a Certification in Women and Gender Studies, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, 2020.
Major Interests: Puerto Rican and Lesser Antillean Literature, decolonial theory, poetry and non-fiction, trauma and memory studies, creative writing, queer/cuir and gender studies, intersectional feminism, and national discourses.
Working Languages: English, Spanish
Select Publications:
“The Negotiations of a Puerto Rican in (Trans)It: An Exploration of the Journey Through Spaces and Those In-between in lo terciario/ the tertiary by Raquel Salas Rivera.” Caribbean Without Borders: Voices of Change and Resistance. Accepted for publication on July 10, 2020.
“Christian Doctrine, Homosexuality, and Trauma in H. Nigel Thomas' Return to Arcadia.” 2020 Caribbean Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. Accepted for publication on June 27, 2020.
“La Labor De Nombrar La Nostalgia: sobre La Distancia es un Lugar de Amanda Hernandez.” Low-Fi Ardentía- Revista De Poesía, 28 Apr. 2020, https://lowfiardentia.com/2020/04/28/la-labor-de-nombrar-la-nostalgia-sobre-la-distancia-es-un-lugar-de-amanda-hernandez/
“Lo Absurdo de Ser Una Colonia En El Siglo XXI: La Exploración Del Valor En lo terciario/the tertiary De Raquel Salas Rivera.” Cruce: Crítica Sociocultural Contemporánea, 10 May 2019, pp. 43–47. https://issuu.com/revistacruce/docs/ser_colonia_10_mayo/42
Federica Signorini
Education:
B.A. (Hons) English Literature and American Studies, University of Manchester (UK), 2014
M.A. Post-1900 Literature, Theory and Culture, University of Manchester (UK), 2015
Major Interests:
Contemporary and Twentieth-Century literature, photography and visual art in Europe and Latin America produced by women. Psychoanalysis, Deconstruction, Political Theory, Feminist Studies and Queer Theory.
Working Languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian