Angelique V. Nixon - Visiting Scholar

Angelique V. Nixon is an Assistant Professor in Residence in the University of Connecticut's Women's Studies Program.She recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship (2008-09) in Africana Studies at New York University, where she engaged in advanced research on migrations and immigrations. She continues as a visiting scholar in Africana Studies for the 2009-10 academic year. Her research and teaching areas include Caribbean and postcolonial studies, African diaspora literatures, postcolonial and feminist theories,gender & sexuality studies, and transnational migrations. She earned her Ph.D. in English and graduate certification in women's and gender research from the University of Florida in 2008. Her scholarly work has been published in SAIL: Studies in American Indian Literatures, Lucayos (Caribbean Journal of Literature, Culture,& Arts), and forthcoming in the 2009 book collection The Caribbean Women Writer as Scholar. She is also a creative writer, and her poetry has appeared in Julie Mango, Proud Flesh, Journal of Caribbean Literatures, and Black Renaissance Noire.

Currently, she is completing a scholarly book manuscript titled "Resisting Paradise: Tourism, Diaspora, and Mobility in Caribbean Literature and Culture,"which examines the material effects of tourism and neocolonialism on Caribbean culture and identity. The project interrogates the cultural and sexual politics of tourism through a study of migratory artifacts. Her research asserts the importance of both tourism and diaspora in shaping Caribbean culture and identity through an examination of literature and activism by several Caribbean writers and artists inside and outside the region. She interrogates contemporary Caribbean discourse, with a focus on resistance to neocolonialism found in Caribbean writers and artists direct engagement with tourism. Her research posits that while the location and mobility of Caribbean writers may inform their engagement, these writers launch similar criticisms by(re)writing history, resisting dominant narratives of paradise, and creating alternative visions of travel written from the perspective of the colonized, gendered, sexualized, and racialized subject. Overall, the project complicates the ways in which African Diaspora studies addresses issues of mobility and migration by examining the extent to which tourism affects culture, identity,sexuality, and movement of African diasporic peoples.

Dr. Nixon’s teaching and pedagogy are a reflection of her deep commitment to grassroots organizing. She has worked with a number of organizations, including Critical Resistance in Gainesville Florida, The Audre Lorde Project in Brooklyn, and the AIDS ServiceCenter in New York City. Angelique is also serving on Caribbean Regional Board of the International Resource Network at CUNY’s Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies. Also, she has presented her work in a variety of venues, from academic conferences to community workshops, on many subjects including "Caribbean Sexuality," "Poverty in the Caribbean," "Community Building and Activism," "Gender, Race, and the Prison Industrial Complex," and "Black LGBTQ Identities" among others. Most recently, she organized a series of community workshops on "Sisterhood" and "Storytelling," and a three-day Caribbean Sexualities Gathering in Kingston, Jamaica. Angelique is deeply committed to the ongoing struggle for social justice,gender and sexual equality, and Black liberation; she works on multiple levels– teaching, writing, and community work – to envision radical change. She is also the author of the blog – conscious vibration - http://consciousvibration.blogspot.com/.

Contact: avn2@nyu.edu