Journal Articles and Book Chapters
“Witnessing and Wounding in Suzan-Lori Parks’s Venus.” Multi-Ethnic Literature of the US (MELUS) – Special Issue: Visual Culture and Race. 39.2 (2014): 188-207.
In this essay I argue that in her play Venus, Suzan-Lori Parks complicates the notion of the gaze to shift power away from the manifold viewers witnessing Baartman’s display (both the contemporary audience and the audience built into the play), and this creates a space for Baartman to exist without the burden of having to be representative. In the play, Baartman articulates her experience and gives voice to the pain underscoring it. In essence, Parks constructs an audience that is prepared to see Baartman as a black woman rather than as the black woman.
“Navel-erasing: Androgyny and Self-Making in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother.” Imagining the Black Female Body: Reconciling Image in Print and Visual Culture. Ed. Carol Henderson. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010. 145-161.
This piece makes the case that Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother inspire a rethinking of what it means to write (or write about) the black female body. By creating figures who elude definition and categorization, both writers imagine black womanhood in a way that places notions of black female bodies and identity outside of generally accepted ideology of race and gender. This creates a sense of boundarylessness that allows for various movements, particularly between male and female, self and other, even life and death.
Theatre Reviews
“Holler if Ya Hear Me – Book by Todd Kriedler, Lyrics by TuPac Shakur. Directed by Kenny Leon. Palace Theatre, Broadway. New York City (Review) 21 June 2014.” Theatre Journal. Volume 61.1 (2015):124-127.
“Stick Fly by Lydia R. Diamond.” Directed by Kenny Leon. Cort Theatre, New York City. (Review) 7 December 2011.” Theatre Journal. Volume 64.3 (2012): 441-444.
Book Reviews
“Violence, Visual Culture and the Black Male Body by Cassandra Jackson.” Callaloo. 36.1 (2013): 207-210.
“Rev. of Reading Africa into American Literature by Keith Cartwright.” The Southern Quarterly: A Journal of Arts in the South 41. 1 (2002): 129-131.
