Education:

Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies
M.A. in Hispanic Studies
M.F.A. in Creative Writing (in Italian)
B.A. in Spanish Language and Literature

I am currently the coordinator of Spanish courses, and the advisor of our honors society, Sigma Delta Pi (chapter Xi Xi). I co-coordinate the Latinx, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program. I also collaborate with colleagues from the African American and African Diaspora Studies Program and the Middle Eastern and North African Studies Program. I am a proud supporter of BRAVE Bears. I also promote virtual language exchanges and COIL projects, which focus on transcultural collaboration and enable students to practice the target language with international peers.

Teaching and Research Interests
My teaching and research interests include a variety of pre-modern/modern/contemporary Hispanic cultural forms. I mainly study the historical presence and the cultural heritage of Black people in the Iberian Peninsula. In my work, I aim to connect the current systemic racism to previous stages of Spanish history and cultural memory. My interdisciplinary work includes paleogenomics, anthropology, archaeology, history, literature, arts, and other cultural forms. All of this converges in a scholarly effort to decolonize the Spanish curriculum and put it into dialogue with the Global Hispanophone world. Other topics I also enjoy are micronarratives of displacement (exiles, migrations), and ecocriticism. As a translator, I published Javier Tomeo's short-narratives in Italian (Racconti Perversi, 2007). 

Recent Courses Taught
SPAN 101 Elementary Spanish I (both, on-site and online)

SPAN 102 Elementary Spanish II (both, on-site and online)

SPAN 203 Intermediate Spanish I

SPAN 204 Intermediate Spanish II

SPAN 209 Spanish for the Health Professions

SPAN 311 Advanced Spanish Conversation and Composition

SPAN 313 Hispanic Folklore and Literature

SPAN 315 Survey of Spanish Literature I

SPAN 318 Spanish Civilization II

SPAN  319 Western Sahara

SPAN 320 Black Writers of Spanish Expression

SPAN 321 Women Writers of Hispanic Africa

Selected Publications

“Espacio Afro as a Marronage Space: Belonging and Healing in a Black-owned Cultural Center in Madrid,” Writing Diaspora in the 21st Century. Ed. Borst and Maeding. Brill, 2026. (in press)

“​​Antiracist Pedagogies and the Global Black Hispanophone. Centering Race in a Historically Black University and Beyond,” Cultural Rhizomes of the Global Hispanophone. Ed. Ellison and Amores. Vanderbilt UP, 2026. (in press)

“Antigüedad de los cuerpos negros en la península ibérica y la mitología euroblanca,” Personas afrodescendientes en la Península Ibérica: proyecciones y posicionamientos en la literatura, el arte y los medios. Ed. J. Borst, and D. Gallo. De Gruyter: 2024. In press.

 “Raza, nación, olvidos y falacias históricas. Análisis decolonial de libros de texto sobre la cultura y la civilización españolas,” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 2023. In press.

 “AfroEspaña antes del boom. Una mirada interdisciplinar sobre la presencia histórica y el legado cultural negro,” Transmodernity vol. 10,2 (2023): 1-22. DOI: 10.5070/T410261298.

 “A Commitment to Study Abroad and Lesson Learned,” Half Yet to Be Told. Study Abroad at HBCUs. Co-written with Marisa Grey et al. Ed. A. P. Stevenson and K. N. Abraham. The Forum: 2023. 71-96. In print.

 “Génesis y censura de Los niños tontos de Ana María Matute,” Microtextualidades. Revista internacional de microrrelato y minificción 12 (2022): 1-18. DOI: 10.31921/microtextualidades.n12a1.

 "Not only a muse: María Luisa Elío's Creative Network During her Exile." Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 23.1 (2022): 35-50.

 “Learning Beyond the Curriculum,” Global Footprints in Higher Education. Cross-cultural Experiences and Faculty at Morgan State University. Ed. K. Bista and A. Newson-Horst. StarScholars Network. 2022. 128-32.

 “Academia y activismo comunitario: La universidad deja la torre de marfil por la calle,” Revista de ALCESXXI: Journal of Contemporary Spanish Literature and Film 4 (2019-20) [publication year 2022]: 340-79.

"Hombres blancos con poder: Descolonizar el currículo en un curso de cultura y civilización." Hispania 104.1 (2021): 17-20.

"Mise en Abyme y Parodia en la Minificción de José De la Colina". Minificción y nanofilología: Latitudes de la hiperbrevedad. Ed. A. Rueda. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2017. 219-28.