Participant Bios
Salvador Ayala Camarillo (he/him) can be found online at twitter.com/MotorSal13. The first thing that Camarillo ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Tara Betts (she/her) is an Artist in Residence at Northwestern University. Learn more about Betts here.
La Marr Jurelle Bruce (he/him) is an Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Learn more about Bruce here.
Derrais Carter (he/they) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona. Carter’s most recent projects includes “Black Revelry: In Honor of The Sugar Shack”. You can learn more about Carter online at https://gws.arizona.edu/user/derrais-carter . The first thing that Carter ever read by Gayl Jones was Eva's Man or Corregidora.
Ashley Codner (she/her) is a PhD Student at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Codner first learned about Gayl Jones’ work when she was assigned Corregidora in an undergraduate course.
Bias Collins (he/him) a PhD student in the Literature department at the University of California, San Diego. Collins’ most recent projects include focusing is on queer/ed dis/ability re/presentation in adaptation. You can learn more about Collins online at literature.ucsd.edu/grad-phd/students/index.html. Collins first learned about Gayl Jones’ work in Dr. Kianna Middleton's course Disability and Madness in African American Literature. The first thing that Collins ever read by Gayl Jones was Eva’s Man.
Angel C. Dye (she/her) is a PhD candidate at Rutger’s University. Dye’s most recent projects include a debut poetry chapbook called BREATHE from Central Square Press. You can learn more about Dye online at centralsquarepress.com. The first thing that Dye ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Brittney Edmonds (she/her) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Edmonds’ most recent projects include a monthly podcast for New Books Network on the African American Studies Channel and a monograph in progress: “Who's Laughing Now? Black Satire and the Evolution of Black Forms after 1968.” You can learn more about Edmonds online at brittneymichelleedmonds.com . Edmonds first learned about Gayl Jones’ work from her graduate mentor, Dr. Daphne Brooks. The first thing that Edmonds ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Roderick Ferguson is William Roberston Coe Professor of Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and Professor of American Studies at Yale University. Learn more about Ferguson here.
Calen Firedancing (they/them) is a Mellon Mays Alum. Firedancing’s most recent projects include publications in fields magazine and Winter Tangerine’s SPHINXX. Firedancing first learned about Gayl Jones’ work in a class on neo-slave narratives taught by Professor Ianna Hawkins Owen. The first thing that Firedancing ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs is also an award-winning author, artist, activist, media maker, and a 2022 National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellow. Learn more about Gumbs here.
Leon Hilton (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Theater Arts and Performance Studies at Brown University. Learn more about Hilton here.
Ra Malika Imhotep (they/them) is a UC Presidents Postdoctoral Fellow in Dance/Critical Dance Studies at UC Riverside and a Visiting Scholar at Tulane University. Imhotep’s most recent projects include gossypiin: poems published by Red Hen Press April 12th 2022. You can learn more about Imhotep online at ramalikaimhotep.com. Imhotep first learned about Gayl Jones’ work through mentions of the wild things my colleagues had encountered reading correigadora and then a recommendation to read White Rat from the artist Kenyatta AC Hinkle.
Chasia Elzina Jeffries (she/they) is Ph.D. Student in Culture & Theory at UC Irvine. You can learn more about Jeffries online at bit.ly/chasiaej. The first thing that Jeffries ever read by Gayl Jones was White Rat.
Clara Jimenez (she/her) is an English PhD student at UC Davis. Jimenez’s most recent projects includes “Transforming Melancholia: Female Depression and Coping in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Gayl Jones’ Corregidora” ( published in Berkeley McNair Journal, Volume 27). Jimenez first learned about Gayl Jones’ work in an undergraduate research seminar. The first thing that Jimenez ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Cheryl Johnson (she/her) is Professor Emerita in the Department of English at Miami University of Ohio. Johnson’s most recent projects include working on biography of Gayl Jones. You can learn more about Johnson online at facebook.com/cheryl.johnson.56679015. Johnson first learned about Gayl Jones’ work when she met Jones as a graduate student at The University of Michigan, where Jones was a professor. The first thing that Johnson ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Nettie Jones (she/her) is Retired From NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study 1998-2010: Author 1984,Fish Tales, Mischief Makers 1989,1991,Critically Acclaimed. Other higher education positions at such as Michigan Tech University, Writer In Residence 1987-1990 and Consultant to Administrators and Board of Trust, Writer In Residence Wayne State University 1984-1986, Teacher 1963-2010 Secondary to University. Mentor Gayl Jones 1998 -2022. Jones’ most recent projects include PUMA Manuscript in Progress, serving as a Volunteer at Mental Health Housing, and Free Lance Writing. Jones first learned about Gayl Jones’ work in 1977. The first thing that Jones ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Deborah E. McDowell (she/her) is the Alice Griffin Professor of English at the University of Virginia. McDowell’s most recent project includes a Norton Anthology of African American Literature essay on poet, Brenda Marie Osbey. You can learn more about McDowell online at https://twitter.com/dem8z . The first thing that McDowell ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Diana Farin Molina (she/her) is a PhD Candidate ABD a Rutgers University. Molina’s most recent projects include her dissertation, "The Poetics of Eating: Deciphering Black Experimental Being". Molina first learned about Gayl Jones’ work preparing for her qualifying exam for her PhD. The first thing that Molina ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Emily Moore (she/her) is a PhD candidate at the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Race and Racialisation, UCL. Moore’s most recent projects includes Undertaking a project on jazz and blues in the work of Gayl Jones. Moore first learned about Gayl Jones’ work on Paul Gilroy's MA module on African American music and literature. The first thing that Moore ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
John Mundell (he/him) is a Ph.D. candidate in African American & African Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley. Mundell’s most recent projects include published articles in Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, Luso-Brazilian Review, serving as co-founder of the multi-institutional Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean working group, his first book proposal, "Longing for a Racial Democracy: Race, Sex, and Popular Culture in Brazil.” You can learn more about Mundell online at twitter.com/johnamundell . Mundell first learned about Gayl Jones’ work through Kia Middleton and Ianna Hawkins Owen. The first thing that Mundell ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Ivana I Onubogu (they/them) is a graduate student at Rutgers University. Onubogu first learned about Gayl Jones’ work her first undergraduate English seminar which was titled: "Gender and Sexuality in the Neo-slave Narrative." The first thing that Onubogu ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Cassie Osei (she/her) is a PhD candidate at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Osei’s most recent projects include Another Urban Grammar: Black Perspectives on Social Mobility in Twentieth Century São Paulo, a dissertation recently defended and deposited. You can learn more about Osei online at twitter.com/tropigalia. Osei first learned about Gayl Jones’ work from John Mundell’s recommendation. The first thing that Osei ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Esmeralda Arrizón-Palomera (she/ella) is an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. Arrizón-Palomera’s most recent projects includes "Migration: Points of Entry, Points of Departure” at the Wolf Humanities Symposium. You can learn more about Arrizón-Palomera online at wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/fellows/esmeralda-arrizon-palomera. The first thing that Arrizón-Palomera ever read by Gayl Jones was Mosquito.
Theri Pickens (she/her) is a Professor of English at Bates College. Pickens’s most recent projects include her book “Black Madness :: Mad Blackness.” You can learn more about Pickens online at www.tpickens.org. Pickens first learned about Gayl Jones’ work during the summer of 2006. The first thing that Pickens ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Janet Arelis Quezada’s (she/ella) most recent projects include Lázaro Lima, published in Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing. You can learn more about Quezada online at instagram.com/janetarelis. Quezada first learned about Gayl Jones’ work at Wellesley/The first thing that Quezada ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Almah LaVon Rice’s (she/her) most recent projects include Another City Is Possible: Speculative Storytelling In Place, a workshop series focused on speculative mixed media storytelling and placemaking. You can learn more about Rice online at almahlavonrice.com. The first thing that Rice ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Erin Soros (she/they) is a Shadbolt Fellow of Public Humanities at Simon Fraser University. Soros’ most recent projects include two articles in Topia (online sociology journal), an article in Sociologica (online), essays also in The Puritan, Room, The Malahat, Poetry in The Malahat, and The CBC Literary Award. You can learn more about Soros online at twitter.com/erinsoros. The first thing that Soros ever read by Gayl Jones was Eva's Man.
Kirin Wachter-Grene (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Liberal Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Wachter-Grene’s most recent projects include co-editing, with Louis Chude-Sokei, a special issue of The Black Scholar titled "Unsafe Words: Black Radical Pleasure II" (53.4), forthcoming in 2023. This issue is a followup to special issue 50.2 (published in 2020 in honor of the journal's 50th anniversary), titled "At the Limits of Desire: Black Radical Pleasure." You can learn more about Wachter-Grene online at saic.edu/profiles/faculty/kirin-wachter-grene. Wachter-Grene first learned about Gayl Jones’ work through an act of fated kinship.
Crystal Wilkinson is an award-winning author, Kentucky’s Poet Laureate, and professor of English at the University of Kentucky. Read more about Wilkinson here.
Megan Maxine Williams (she/her) is a PhD candidate at Purdue University. Williams’ most recent project includes "Vibrational Reprieves: Black Women’s Soul Food Narratives as Aesthetic Sites of Erotic and Sexual Agency". You can learn more about Williams online at cla.purdue.edu/directory/profiles/megan-williams.html. Williams first learned about Gayl Jones’ work first learned of Gayl Jones' work in graduate school researching Black women novelists who wrote about sexuality post-1965. The first thing that Williams ever read by Gayl Jones was Eva's Man.
Autumn Womack (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies and English at Princeton University. Womack’s most recent projects include The Matter of Black Living: The Aesthetic Experiment of Racial Data, 1880-1930 (University of Chicago Press, 2022) and curator for Princeton University's 2023 archival exhibition Toni Morrison: Sites of Memory. Womack first learned about Gayl Jones’ work as an undergraduate in college. The first thing that Womack ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Caroline Yang (she/her) is an Associate Professor, English, at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Yang’s most recent projects include her book, The Peculiar Afterlife of Slavery: The Chinese Worker and the Minstrel Form. You can learn more about Yang online at umass.edu/english/member/caroline-yang. The first thing that Yang ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.
Anna Ziering (she/her) is a PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut. Ziering’s most recent projects include “Black Radical Pleasure: A Black Scholar Roundtable,” American Studies Association. You can learn more about Ziering online at linkedin.com/in/annacziering/. Ziering first learned about Gayl Jones’ work studying abroad at King’s College London. The first thing that Ziering ever read by Gayl Jones was Corregidora.