Deborah Jenson
Professor of Romance Studies
I am a scholar of "long 19th century" in French and Caribbean literature and culture, cognitive literary studies, health humanities, and global health. Running through all my research, teaching, and outreach is the problem of representation and mimesis, on axes from social contagion to rhetoric to mirror neurons. Here are some ways to think about my work:
- Research: articles on Sylvia Wynter and Global South Philosophy in PMLA, "Creole" poetry by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (Cahiers Marceline Desbordes-Valmore), and a co-authored study on qualitative representations of epilepsy in Epilepsy and Behavior. Forthcoming work on Haitian psychiatrist Louis Mars in Black Psychology, and a co-edited research topic with Marco Iacoboni and Len White on Representation in Neuroscience and Humanities in Frontiers. Monographs, edited volumes, editions, and translations include: Beyond the Slave Narrative: Politics, Sex, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution; Trauma and Its Representations: The Social Life of Mimesis in Post-Revolutionary France; Poetry of Haitian Independence (with D. Kadish and N. Shapiro); Unconscious Dominions: Psychoanalysis, Colonial Trauma, and Global Sovereignty (with W. Anderson and R. Keller); Sarah, A Colonial Novella (with D. Kadish); and "Coming to Writing" and Other Essays by Hélène Cixous.
- Public humanities: co-founder and co-director of the Haiti Lab (2010-2013), founder and co-director of the Health Humanities Lab (2015-2020), and co-founder and co-director of the Neurohumanities Research Group (2013-) at the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences.
- Pedagogy: my teaching builds on the interdisciplinary nature of my work, from "Flaubert's Brain: Neurohumanities," "Pandemic Humanities: Reimagining Health and Medicine in Romance Studies," and "Trauma and Global Health," to "Mimesis in Theory and Practice," "Global Humanities in French," and "Sylvia Wynter, Frantz Fanon, and Caribbean Philosophy Writ Large."
- Administrative leadership: from directing the Franklin Humanities Institute, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and co-directing the Brain & Society theme of Bass Connections, to P.I.ship of grants including the Mellon "Humanities Futures" grant at FHI, and co P.I.ship with Ed Balleisen of the NEH Next Generation "Versatile Humanists" grant.
- For a profile of one of my remarkable undergraduate students in French, see this feature on Marshall Scholar Julie Uchitel: https://today.duke.edu/2022/05/duke-alumna-awarded-knight-hennessy-scholarship.
Office Hours
Tuesday1:30-4 pm or by appointment
Current Appointments & Affiliations
- Professor of Romance Studies, Romance Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2009
- Research Professor of Global Health, Duke Global Health Institute, University Institutes and Centers 2013
- Faculty Network Member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, University Institutes and Centers 2009
- Associate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society, Duke Science & Society, Initiatives 2018
Contact Information
- 112 Language Center, Box 90257, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708
- 205 Language Center, Box 90257, Durham, NC 27708-0257
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deborah.jenson@duke.edu
- Background
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Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., Harvard University 1994
- M.A., University of Paris (France) 1985
- B.A., Bowdoin College 1983
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Previous Appointments & Affiliations
- Director of the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, University Institutes and Centers 2015 - 2017
- Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies of French, Romance Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2011
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Leadership & Clinical Positions at Duke
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Director, Franklin Humanities Institute, 2015-2018
Co-Director, Brain & Society Theme of Bass Connections, 2012-2016
Director, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 2012-2014
Founding Co-Director, Health Humanities Lab, 2016-2020
Co-Director, Haiti Lab, 2010-2013
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Director, Franklin Humanities Institute, 2015-2018
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Academic Positions Outside Duke
- Director, Center for the Humanities, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2007 - 2008
- Professor of French and Italian, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2002 - 2008
- Recognition
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In the News
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JUN 25, 2020 Duke Government Relations -
APR 25, 2017 -
AUG 9, 2016 -
JAN 28, 2016 -
JAN 28, 2016 Duke Today -
SEP 15, 2015 -
SEP 15, 2015 Duke Today -
APR 8, 2015 -
FEB 25, 2015 -
FEB 25, 2015 Duke Today -
JAN 6, 2015 -
JAN 6, 2015 Duke Today -
JAN 22, 2014 -
JAN 22, 2014 Duke Today -
NOV 12, 2013 -
NOV 12, 2013 Duke Today -
AUG 12, 2013 -
JUL 2, 2013
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- Expertise
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Global Scholarship
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Expertise
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Research
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Teaching
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- Research
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Fellowships, Supported Research, & Other Grants
- Reckoning with Race, Racism, and the History of the American South Initiative: Unearthing Duke Forest awarded by Duke Office of the Provost 2021
- Publications & Artistic Works
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Selected Publications
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Books
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Kadish, D., D. Jenson, and T. B. N. Shapiro. Poetry of the Haitian Independence. Translated by N. Shapiro. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015.Link to Item
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Kadish, D., D. Jenson, and T. B. N. Shapiro. Poetry of the Haitian Independence. Translated by N. Shapiro. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015.Link to Item
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Anderson, Deborah Jenson with Warwick, and Richard E. Keller. Unconscious Dominions: Psychoanalysis, Colonial Trauma, and Global Sovereignties. Duke University Press, 2011.
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Jenson, D. Beyond the Slave Narrative: Sex, Politics, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution. Liverpool University Press, 2011.Link to Item
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Jenson, Deborah, Warwick Anderson, and Richard E. Keller. Globalizing the Unconscious, 2011.
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Jenson, D., and D. Kadish. Sarah, The Original French Text, 2008.
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Jenson, D., and D. Kadish. Sarah, The Original French Text, 2008.
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Jenson, Deborah, and Doris Kadish. Sarah, An English Translation. MLA Editions, 2008.
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Jenson, Deborah, and Doris Kadish. Sarah, An English Translation. MLA Editions, 2008.
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Jenson, Deborah. Trauma and Its Representations: The Social Life of Mimesis in Post-Revolutionary France. Johns Hopkins UP, 2001.
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Cixous, H. "Coming to Writing" and Other Essays by Hélène Cixous. Edited by D. Jenson. Translated by D. Jenson, S. Cornell, A. Liddle, and S. Sellers. Harvard University Press, 1992.Link to Item
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Cixous, H. "Coming to Writing" and Other Essays by Hélène Cixous. Edited by D. Jenson. Translated by D. Jenson, S. Cornell, A. Liddle, and S. Sellers. Harvard University Press, 1992.Link to Item
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Academic Articles
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Iacoboni, Marco, Deborah Jenson, Julie Uchitel, and Leonard E. White. “Editorial: Representation in neuroscience and humanities.” Front Integr Neurosci 16 (2022): 1035367. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2022.1035367.Full Text Link to Item
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Jenson, D. “Ceremonies Lost and Found: Global South Critical Philosophy against Cognitive Exceptionalism.” Pmla/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 137, no. 1 (2022): 136–43. https://doi.org/10.1632/S0030812921000894.Full Text Link to Item
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Jenson, Deborah. “Maroon nation: a history of revolutionary Haiti.” The Historian 83, no. 2 (April 3, 2021): 210–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/00182370.2021.1965429.Full Text
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Uchitel, Julie, Charles McDade, Marika Mathew, Sneha Mantri, Deborah Jenson, and Aatif M. Husain. “Conversational analysis of consciousness during seizures.” Epilepsy Behav 112 (November 2020): 107486. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2020.107486.Full Text Link to Item
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Jenson, Deborah. “Marceline Desbordes-Valmore créolisée et créolisatrice. Décolonisation et préciosité dans « Chanson créole » (1819).” Edited by Christine Planté and Pierre Loubier. Cahiers Marceline Desbordes Valmore, 2020.
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Jenson, Deborah. “Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness.” American Literature 92, no. 1 (2020): 183–85.Link to Item
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Jenson, Deborah. “See It Feelingly: Classic Novels, Autistic Readers, and the Schooling of a No-Good English Professor.” American Literature 92, no. 1 (2020): 183–85.Link to Item
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Jenson, Deborah. “Living by Metaphor in the Haitian Revolution: Tigers and Cognitive Theory,” 2016.Open Access Copy
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Jenson, D. “Sources and interpretations jean-jacques dessalines and the African character of the haitian revolution.” William and Mary Quarterly 69, no. 3 (July 1, 2012): 615–38. https://doi.org/10.5309/willmaryquar.69.3.0615.Full Text Open Access Copy
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Crichlow, R. L., R. L. Northover, and R. L. Jenson. “Introduction: Caribbean Entanglements in Times of Crises.” The Global South 6, no. 1 (2012): 1–1. https://doi.org/10.2979/globalsouth.6.1.1.Full Text Open Access Copy
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Jenson, Deborah, and Laurent Dubois. “Humanities in the Lab: Rethinking Haitian Studies.” Diversity and Democracy: Civic Learning for Shared Futures 15 (2012).
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Jenson, Deborah. “States of Ghetto, Ghettos of States: Haiti and the ‘Era de Francia’ in the Dominican Republic, 1804-1808.” The Global South 106 (2012): 156–71.Open Access Copy
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Jenson, Fredric. “<em>Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Canon</em>, by Kamaia L. Glover.” Research in African Literatures 43, no. 3 (2012): 135–135. https://doi.org/10.2979/reseafrilite.43.3.135.Full Text Open Access Copy
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Jenson, D. “Kidnapped Narratives: Mobility without Autonomy and the Nation/Novel Analogy,” November 25, 2011, 369–86. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444342789.ch23.Full Text Open Access Copy
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Jenson, Deborah, Victoria Szabo, and Victoria Duke FHI Haiti Humanities Laboratory Student Research Team. “Cholera in Haiti and other Caribbean regions, 19th century.” Emerging Infectious Diseases 17, no. 11 (November 2011): 2130–35. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid1711.110958.Full Text Open Access Copy
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Jenson, Deborah, and Marco Iacoboni. “Literary Biomimesis: Mirror Neurons and the Ontological Priority of Representation.” California Italian Studies, 2011.Open Access Copy
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Jenson, Deborah. “Colonialism, Race, and the French Romantic Imagination.” Interventions International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 13, no. 2 (January 1, 2011): 328–30.Link to Item
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Jenson, Deborah. “Dessalines’s American Proclamations of the Haitian Independence.” The Journal of Haitian Studies Vol. 15 (2010): 72–102.Open Access Copy
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Jenson, Deborah. “The Common Without Copies, the International Without Cosmopolitanism: Marx Against the Romanticism of Likeness.” Rethinking Marxism 22 (2010): 420–33.Open Access Copy
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Jenson, Deborah. “Hegel and Dessalines: Philosophy and the African Diaspora.” New West Indian Guide 84 (2010): 4–9.Open Access Copy
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Jenson, Deborah. “Hegel and Dessalines: Philosophy and the African Diaspora.” New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West Indische Gids 84, no. 3–4 (January 1, 2010): 269–75. https://doi.org/10.1163/13822373-90002443.Full Text
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Jenson, D. “Myth, history, and witnessing in Marceline Desbordes-Valmore's Caribbean poetics.” Esprit Createur 47, no. 4 (January 1, 2007): 81–92. https://doi.org/10.1353/esp.2007.0066.Full Text
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Jenson, Deborah. “Myth, History, and Witnessing in Marceline Desbordes-Valmore’s Caribbean Poetics,” 2007.Open Access Copy
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Jenson, Deborah. “Before Malcolm X, Dessalines: A ‘French’ Tradition of Black Atlantic Radicalism,” 2007.Open Access Copy
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Jenson, D. “The persons and things school: Parrots, peasants, and pariahs in "Un Coeur simple" and la Chaumière indienne.” Differences 17, no. 3 (December 1, 2006): 107–25. https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-2006-014.Full Text Open Access Copy
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Jenson, Deborah. “Mimetic Mastery and Colonial Mimicry In the First Franco-Antillean Creole Anthology.” The Yale Journal of Criticism 17, no. 1 (2004): 83–106. https://doi.org/10.1353/yale.2004.0004.Full Text
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Jenson, D. “Louise Ackermann's Monstrous Nature.” Symposium 53, no. 4 (2000): 234–47.Open Access Copy
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Book Sections
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Jenson, D. “Toussaint Louverture, genio 'cimarrôn' y multimodial.” In Toussaint Louverture: Repensar Un Icono, edited by M. Past and N. M. Léger, 217–30. Santiago de Cuba: Casa del Caribe, 2015.
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Jenson, Deborah, and Lesley Curtis. “The Haitian Revolution.” In The Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, edited by Patrick Mason, 2:277–84. Gale, 2013.
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Jenson, Deborah. “Placing Haiti in Geopsychoanalytic Space: Toward a Postcolonial Concept of Traumatic Mimesis.” In Unconscious Dominions: Psychoanalysis, Trauma, and Sovereignty, 2011.
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Jenson, Deborah. “Surrealism and the Avant Garde Novel, and The Decadent Novel.” In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Novel, 2011.
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Jenson, D. “Francophone World Literature (Littérature-monde), Cosmopolitanism and Decadence: 'Citizen of the World' without the Citizen?” In Transnational French Studies : Postcolonialism and Littérature-Monde, edited by A. Hargreaves, C. Forsdick, and D. Murphy, 1:15–35. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 2010.
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Jenson, Deborah. “The Writing of Disaster in Haiti: Signifying Cataclysm from Slave Revolution to Earth Quake.” In Haiti Rising, edited by Martin Munro, 103–12. Liverpool University Press, 2010.
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Jenson, Deborah. “Francophone World Literature (Littérature-monde) Cosmopolitanism, and Decadence: ‘Citizen of the World’ without the Citizen?” In Transnational French Studies: Postcolonialism and Littérature-Monde, edited by Alec Hargreaves, 15–35. Liverpool University Press, 2010.
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Jenson, Deborah. “Mirror Revolutions: Ourika and Saint-Domingue.” In "Approaches to Teaching Claire de Duras’s ‘Ourika,’” Ed. Mary Ellen Birkett and Christopher Rivers (New York: Modern Language Editions, 2009) Pp.45-50, 2009.
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Miller, Deborah Jenson with Christopher L. “Historical Timeline.” In Approaches to Teaching Claire de Duras’s ‘Ourika,’” Ed. Mary Ellen Birkett and Christopher Rivers (New York: Modern Language Editions, MLA Editions, 2009) Pp.12-17, 2009.
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Jenson, Deborah. “Toussaint Louverture, Spin Doctor? Launching the Haitian Revolution in the French Media.” In Tree of Liberty: Legacies of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World, 41–62. University of Virginia Press, 2008.
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Jenson, Deborah. “Fétichisme de la marchandise: la poésie des courtisanes noires ou de couleur à Saint-Domingue.” In Relire l’histoire et La Littérature Haïtiennes, edited by Christiane Ndiaye, 27–56. Presses nationales d’Haïti, 2007.
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Other Articles
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Jenson, D., and L. Dubois. “Haiti Can Be Rich Again.” New York Times, January 8, 2012.
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Jenson, D. “From the Kidnapping(s) of the Louvertures to the Alleged Kidnapping of Aristide: Legacies of Slavery in the Post/Colonial World.” Yale French Studies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.Link to Item
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Jenson, Deborah. “The Haiti Issue.” Yale French Studies, 2005.
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Journal Issues
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Jenson, D., D. Desormeaux, C. Bongie, D. Kadish, and N. F. Nesbitt. “The Haiti Issue: 1804 and Nineteenth-Century French Studies.” Edited by D. Jenson. Yale French Studies. Yale UP, 2005.Link to Item
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Jenson, D., D. Desormeaux, C. Bongie, D. Kadish, and N. F. Nesbitt. “The Haiti Issue: 1804 and Nineteenth-Century French Studies.” Edited by D. Jenson. Yale French Studies. Yale UP, 2005.Link to Item
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Datasets
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Szabo, V., D. Jenson, E. Cloninger, P. Corbett, M. Hoyle, J. Ivker, E. Jernigan, et al. “19th-Century Caribbean Cholera Timemap,” 2011.Link to Item
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Exhibitions, Screenings, & Performances
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Artistic Works & Non-Print Media
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Installations
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- Teaching & Mentoring
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Recent Courses
- AAAS 581S: Sylvia Wynter and the Question of Caribbean Philosophy 2023
- FRENCH 371S: Haiti to New Orleans: 19th Century Literary Migrations 2023
- LIT 581S: Sylvia Wynter and the Question of Caribbean Philosophy 2023
- ROMST 580S: Sylvia Wynter and the Question of Caribbean Philosophy 2023
- FRENCH 89S-1: First-Year Seminar in French 2022
- FRENCH 394: Research Independent Study 2022
- FRENCH 481: Flaubert's Brain: Neurohumanities 2022
- FRENCH 481P: Flaubert's Brain: Neurohumanities Preceptorial 2022
- GLHLTH 89S: First Year Seminar: Special Topics in Global Health 2022
- GLHLTH 390S: Special Topics in Global Health Studies 2022
- LIT 246: Flaubert's Brain: Neurohumanities 2022
- LIT 390S: Special Topics in Literature 2022
- NEUROSCI 241: Flaubert's Brain: Neurohumanities 2022
- ROMST 390S: Special Topics in Romance Studies 2022
- ROMST 390SP: Romance Studies Topics Preceptorial 2022
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Teaching Activities
- In Fall 2020 I am co-teaching a French doctoral seminar "Contemporary African Philosophy with Prof. Felwine Sarr, and teaching the undergraduate Romance Studies and Global Health course "Pandemic Humanities: Reimagining Medicine and Health in Romance Studies." "Pandemic Humanities" is a Global Health Foundations Course.
- Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
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Presentations & Appearances
- Neuroscience and the Poetics of the Haitian Declaration of Independence. December 9, 2013 2013
- Revolutionary Practices. December 5, 2013 2013
- L'aire de Firmin. November 11, 2013 2013
- Adrian and Marcel Proust: Fathering Neurasthenic Memory. October 23, 2013 2013
- Les Cicatrices de Dessalines. April 1, 2013 2013
- Plenary, "African Roots and Revolution in Latin America and the Caribbean". March 19, 2013 2013
- Flaubert and Epilepsy and "Haiti to New Orleans," Katherine P. Gore Chair Lectures. March 1, 2013 2013
- Les Cicatrices de Dessalines. October 17, 2012 2012
- Flaubert's Brain: Neurohumanities (Plenary Lecture for the Society for French Studies). July 5, 2012 2012
- Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the African Character of the Haitian Revolution (Charles Bonnier Annual Lecture). May 6, 2012 2012
- Neuroscience and the Humanities. November 12, 2011 2011
- Digital Humanities and 19th Century French Studies: Mapping the History of Cholera. October 27, 2011 2011
- Immigration to the Republic of Letters. September 30, 2011 2011
- The Duke FHI Haiti Humanities Lab Cholera Project. April 1, 2011 2011
- Barbara Johnson’s Last Gift: Toward a New Engagement with Historical African Personhood. January 9, 2011 2011
- Feminine Literary Persons and Things. January 8, 2011 2011
- Haiti’s Independence Denied: The French in Santo Domingo, 1804. November 13, 2010 2010
- Toward a Theory of Fat: Balzac, Capitalism, and Body Consciousness. October 1, 2010 2010
- Courtesan Poetry, the Urban Libertine Milieu, and the Haitian Revolution. September 1, 2010 2010
- Imitating Universality. May 1, 2010 2010
- Specialized Communities: Mirror Neurons and the Biosocial Politics of Resemblance. May 1, 2010 2010
- The Writing of Disaster in Haiti. May 1, 2010 2010
- Your Experience is in My Body: The Biological Precedence of Representation in the Mirror Neuron Paradigm. May 1, 2010 2010
- Francophone World Literature (littérature-monde) and Cosmopolitanism: Citizen of the World without the Citizen?. November 1, 2009 2009
- Mirror Neurons and Mimesis. October 1, 2009 2009
- Second Nature: The Biosocial Construction of Likeness. September 1, 2009 2009
- Le Monde Mandé et un Postcolonialisme cosmopolite et de longue durée. June 1, 2009 2009
- Haitian Romanticism and Romantic Modernity. May 1, 2009 2009
- Under the Jurisdiction of La Sirène: Anba dlò in Turner, Dessalines, and Haitian Painting. April 1, 2009 2009
- American Reactions to the Haitian Independence in the Era of Slavery. February 1, 2009 2009
- A Reconsideration of the Haitian Declaration of Independence as Text. December 1, 2008 2008
- A Reconsideration of the Haitian Declaration of Independence as Text. November 1, 2008 2008
- Napoleonic Kidnappings, from Toussaint Louverture to the Son of Henry Christophe. October 1, 2008 2008
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Outreach & Engaged Scholarship
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Service to the Profession
- Director : 3rd Annual Romance Studies Undergraduate Research Conference. March 2013 2013
- Selection Committee, Nineteenth-Century French Studies Conference. December 17, 2012 2012
- Orgaanizer : 'Old' Worlds, 'New' Worlds, Future Worlds Romance Studies Undergraduate Research Conference. March 2012 2012
- Co-Organizer : Haiti Lab Workshop, "Unveiling the Colonial System": The Baron de Vastey and the Henry Christophe Regime. December 2011 2011
- PFIRST Workshop, "Discourses of Trauma in Haiti" (Co-Organizer). November 2011 2011
- Selection Committee, NIneteenth-Century French Studies Conference. 2011 2011
- Co-Organizer (with Michaeline Crichlow (Duke, Sociology and AAAS, Patricia Northover (UWI, SALISES), Matthew Smith (UWI, History, Faculty of the Human : States of Freedom, Freedom of States. June 1, 2010 2010
- Editorial Consultant Team, Norton Anthology of World Literature. December 17, 2009 2009
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Service to Duke
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