I am a writer, researcher, and teacher working as an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
I study American literature of the long nineteenth century with emphasis on Black women writers, African American literature, and children’s literature. I am an archival researcher invested in recovery of and access to primary sources, and I work in concert with theories of race, gender, and childhood. I did my Ph.D. in English at Cornell University with a minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and am an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society.
My published academic research includes a book, Relative Races: Genealogies of Interracial Kinship in Nineteenth-Century America (Duke University Press) and over 30 journal articles or chapters in edited collections. I also write essays for public readerships in venues including Avidly, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the New York Times Book Review. Occasionally, I’m a guest on podcasts and video series discussing culture, history, and scholarship.
I am a founding co-director of the Taught By Literature: Recentering Black Women Intellectuals project, for which I was an Idol Family Fellow at Villanova University from 2022-2024. I am also co-editor of J19: Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists and President of the Children’s Literature Association.
On this website you’ll find links to my work as a writer and professor, descriptions of works in progress, and announcements of upcoming events like public lectures.
