Research
Her current research explores rumors about demonic animals in the central frontier of Haiti and the Dominican Republic as a form of sorcery and historical memory.
Courses
Courses:
- History 8b: Modern Latin America
- History 8c: Latin American Cultural History
- The Cultural History of Food
- Animals in the Atlantic World
- Latin American Cultural History
- Debates in Caribbean History
- The Cuban Revolution: History and Revolutionary Culture
- Death and the Afterlife: From Eurasia and Africa to the Americas
- Studies in the Black Atlantic
- Haiti: Past, Present and Future
- Central America: History and Culture
- Witchcraft and Modernity in Latin America
- Oral History: Methodology, Practices, Interpretation
- Latin American Historiography: Cultural Histories of the Nation-State
- Gender and Empire
Fiat Lux:
- Haiti and the Dominican Republic: History and Culture
- Zombies!
- Werewolves
- Animals R Us
- Animals and Culture
- Interpreting Rumor
- Paul Farmer’s Haiti
- Oral History: Approaches to the Life Narrative
- The Devil from Europe to the New World
Publications
Books
- The Dominican Republic Reader, co-editor, with Eric Roorda and Raymundo González (Duke, 2014).
- Here is a portion of the introduction.
- Activating the Past: Historical Memory in the Black Atlantic. Co-edited with Andrew Apter, (Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010).
- The Dominican Republic: A Reader. Co-edited with Eric Roorda and Raymundo González. Collection of primary materials with historiographic introductions. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014.
- The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009). Co-winner of the 2010 Gordon K. & Sybil Lewis Award from the Caribbean Studies Association. Honorable Mention, 2010 Bryce Wood Book Award, Latin American Studies Association. Winner of the Bolton-Johnson Prize from the Council on Latin American History, American Historical Association.
Articles/Chapters
- “Beyond Fugitive Speech: Rumor and Affect in Caribbean History,” Small Axe 18, 2 44(2014): 123-140.
- “The Devil Wears Dockers: Devil Pacts, Trade Zones and Rural –Urban Ties in the Dominican Republic,” co-authored with Marion Werner, New West Indian Guide 87, 2014 (3 & 4).
- “On Revolutionary Dirt in Haiti,” Wild Things: Nature and the Social Imagination, Karen Middleton, ed., Isle of Harris, UK: White Horse Press, 2013, 239-264.
- “Trujillo, the Goat. Of Beasts and Men in the Dominican Republic,” Centering Animals: Writing Animals into Latin American History, edited by Martha Few and Zeb Tortorici, Durham: Duke University Press, 2013, 302-328.
- “La ciudad de los muertos: Los rumores como creadores de opinión pública en Puerto Principe, Haiti,” Istor: Revista de Historia Internacional in special issue on public opinion in Latin America ed. by Carlos Bravo Regidor, XVIII, No. 50, Fall 2012: 37-55.
- 2010 “Bringing the Animals Back in: Writing Quadrupeds into Caribbean History.” History Compass.
- 2008 “Imperial Secrets: Vampires and Nationhood in Puerto Rico,” Past and Present, 199: 290-312.
- 2005 “Temwayaj Kout Kouto, 1937: Eyewitnesses to the Genocide,” reprinted with new introduction coauthored with Richard Turits in Cécile Accilien, ed., Revolutionary Freedoms: A History of Survival, Strength, and Imagination in Haiti, Caribbean Studies Press, 2006, 137-143; originally appeared in Créole Connection V, III, XVIII (Jul-Sep., 1999): 5-10.
- 2003 “In the Shadow of the State: The Politics of Denunciation and Panegyric during the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic, 1940-1958,” Hispanic American Historical Review 83:2 (May 2003), 295-344.
- 2003 “National Identity and the Idea of Value in the Dominican Republic,” in Blacks, Coloureds and National Identity in Nineteenth-Century Latin America, Nancy Priscilla Naro, ed., London: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, 2003, 5-37.
- 2005 “Vampiros del imperio, o por qué el Chupacabras acecha las Américas,” Culturas Imperiales: Experiencia y representación en América, Africa y Asia, Ricardo Salvatorre ed., Buenos Aires: Beatriz Viterbo Editora, 317-344.
- 2000 “The Dictator’s Seduction: Gender and State Spectacle during the Trujillo Regime,” in William Beezley and Linda Curcio, eds., Latin American Cultural Studies: A Reader, (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources), 213-239. Other versions published in Callaloo 23, 3 (Winter, 2000) in special issue on Dominican literature and culture, 1112-1146; and Ramonina Brea, Rosario Espinal and Fernando Valerio-Holguín (eds.), La República Dominicana en el umbral del siglo XXI, 195-214, Santo Domingo: Centro Universitario de Estudios Políticos y Sociales, Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra, 1999.
- 1999 “The Dictator’s Two Bodies: Hidden Powers of State in the Dominican Republic,” Etnofoor XII: 2 (1999): 92-117, (The Netherlands) in special issue on personality cults.
- 1998 “Gringo Chickens with Worms: Food and Nationalism in the Dominican Republic.” In Gilbert M. Joseph, Catherine C. LeGrand and Ricardo D. Salvatorre, eds., Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 451-493.
- 1994 “Haitians, Magic and Money: Raza and Society in the Haitian-Dominican Borderlands, 1900-1937.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 36: 3 (July): 488-526. Abridged version appeared as “Haitianos, magia y dinero: Raza y sociedad en la frontera domínico-haitiana, 1900-1937.” Carta de información sobre Haitianos y el Caribe, APROFED-CEDMA, Santo Domingo, IV, 32 (Feb.).
- 1993 “Historias de terror y los terrores de la historia: la masacre haitiana de 1937 en la República Dominicana.” Estudios Sociales XXVI, 92 (April-June): 65-76. Co-authored with Richard Turits.