Dawn Duke

Dawn Duke is a Professor of Spanish and Portuguese. She is a Lindsay Young Professor of the Humanities (2021-2023). Former Chair of the Africana Studies Program, she currently serves as Chair of the Portuguese Program. She continues as affiliated faculty in the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program. Her graduate studies were completed at UNICAMP, the University of Guyana, and the University of Pittsburgh where she completed her PhD in 2003. Her research is on Afro-Latin American Literature focusing on black women’s writings. Her single-authored books are: Literary Passion, Ideological Commitment: Toward a Legacy of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian Women Writers (Bucknell University Press, 2008) and Mayaya Rising: Black Female Icons in Latin American and Caribbean Literature and Culture (Bucknell University Press, 2023). In 2016 she published A Escritora Afro-Brasileira: Ativismo e Arte Literária, [The Afro-Brazilian Woman Writer: Activism and Literary Art] published by Nandyala (2016). She is a co-editor of: Celluloid Chains: Slavery in the Americas through Film. (University of Tennessee Press, 2018); and Artefatos da Cultura Negra no Ceará. Formação de Professores [Artefacts of Black Culture in Ceará. Educating Teachers], Universidade Federal do Ceará Press, 2013. She has published more than 24 articles in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Publications

Books

• Literary Passion, Ideological Commitment: Toward a Legacy of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian Women Writers. Lewisburg PA: Bucknell University Press, 2008.

Articles

• “Arpegios íntimos, umbrales y ninfas: los contornos de la poesía clásica cubana de María Dámasa Jova.” Cincinnati Romance Review. 51 (Fall 2021): 20-43.
•  “So What if She Can’t Dance: a Testimony from the Afro-Cuban Woman.” PALARA: Publication of the Afro-Latin/American Research Association. Fall 2019, Issue 23. 33-41.
• “The Black Studies Program at the University of Tennessee: Perspectives from an Ex-Program Director.” Educação Unisinos. 23, 1 (janeiro-março 2019): 8-20.
• “In Poetic Memory of Zumbi’s Palmares and Abdias do Nascimento Quilombismo.” Aletria: Revista de Estudos de Literatura. 28, 4 (2018): 11-29.
• “ “Follow Me” and My Footsteps in Baraguá: Caribbean Influences in Afro-Cuban Women’s Literature and Film.” Cincinnati Romance Review.  40 (Spring 2016): 87-105.
• “An Overview of Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Women’s Narratives: Propositions of Analysis.” PALARA. Publication of the Afro-Latin American Research Association. 17 (Fall 2013): 36-46.
• “Literatura afro-femenina en la República Dominicana. ¿Una indefinitud que la define?” Revista Iberoamericana.  LXXIX, 243 (abril-junio 2013): 559-576.
•  “Beyond the Quilombo. The State of Zumbi’s “Palmares” According to the Poets.” Obsidian III. Literature in the African Diaspora.  13, 1 (Spring/Summer 2012): 37-60.
•  “La mujer negra y el popularismo cubano en María Antonia de Eugenio Hernández Espinosa.” Revista de Lenguas Modernas. 17 (julio-diciembre 2012): 23-39.
• “Black Movement Militancy in Panama: SAMAAP’s Reliance on an Identity of West Indianness.” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies. 5, 1 (March 2010): 75-83.
• “O Desenrolar de uma Literatura Afro-Brasileira Comprometida.Conexão Movimento Negro para Movimento Negro Literário.” Ethnos Brasil.6, 1 (jun. 2008): 81-95.
• “Así se va aclarando: Construcciones imaginarias de generaciones de mujeres negras en Vejigantes y Tenda dos Milagres.” Negritud: Revista de Estudios Afro-Latinoamericanos.  1 (nov. 2007): 243-263.
• “Poetic Valuing of the Female Self. Selected Women’s Writings from Brazil, Cuba and Guyana.” Obsidian III. Literature in the African Diaspora.  6, 1 (Spring/Summer 2005): 90-111.
• “Poetic Valuing of the Female Self. Selected Women’s Writings from Brazil, Cuba and Guyana.” Utah Foreign Language Review, Race, Ethnicity and Literature. XIV (June 2005):69-87.
• “Alzira Rufino and Miriam Alves: Afro-Brazilian Writers/Activists and Issues of Race, Gender, Class, and Writing.” África.  22/23 (1). 1999/2000/2001. (September 2004): 267-278.
• “Alzira Rufino’s Casa de Cultura da Mulher Negra as a Form of Female Empowerment: A Look at the Dynamics of a Black Women’s Organization in Brazil Today.” Women’s Studies International Forum. 26, 4 (July-August 2003): 357-368.
• “O Contraste Hierárquica na Poesia Afro-Brasileira: A Militância do Cuti (Luiz Silva).” Pterodáctilo: Subterráneos.  2, 1 (otoño 2002): 34-43.
• “From Past to Present. Poetic Homage to Distant and Recent Memory. Grace Nichols, Alzira Rufino and Nancy Morejón.” Osamayor. VII, 14 (2002): 28-57.
• “Apariciones: dimensiones de la sexualidad y la escritura en la figura femenina.” Sodalitas. 1 (January 2002). 61-81.
• “Rejecting Backyardism: Revolutionary Solidarity in Nancy Morejón’s Cuaderno de Granada.” Hybrido. Arte y Literatura.  V, 5 (2001): 61-66.
•  “Hidden Sensations of Strength in Afro-Brazilian Writings.” Ciberletras. 2 (February 2000) <www.lehman.cuny.edu/ciberletras>.
• Others.

Chapters

• “María Damasa Jova: ¿la primera delegada negra de la República?”, Oilda Hevia Lanier y Daisy Rubiera Castillo (compiladoras): Emergiendo del silencio: mujeres negras en la Historia de Cuba. Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, La Habana, 2016. 246-266.
• “Introdução: Narrativas Afrofemininas no Brasil.” A Escritora Afro-Brasileira:Ativismo e Arte Literária. Ed. Dawn Duke. Belo Horizonte: Nandyala, 2016. 11-32.
• “The Triumph Within: Carolina Maria de Jesus and Strategies for Black Female
• Empowerment in Brazil.” Critical Perspectives on Afro-Latin American  Literature. Ed. Antonio Tillis. New York, Oxford: Routledge, 2012. 184-205.“
• From “Yélida” to Movimiento de Mujeres Dominico-Haitianas: Gendering Problems of Whiteness in the Dominican Republic.” At Home and Abroad: Historicizing Twentieth-Century Whiteness in Literature and Performance. Ed. La Vinia Delois Jennings. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2009. 61-92.
• “How She Strikes Back: Images of Female Strength in Esmeralda Ribeiro’s Writing.” The Afro-Brazilian Mind. Eds. Niyi Afolabi et.al. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2007. 99-120.

Editor

• Celluloid Chains: Slavery in the Americas through Film. Editors: Rudy Alcocer, Kristen Block, Dawn Duke,University of Tennessee Press. 2018.
• A Escritora Afro-Brasileira: Ativismo e Arte Literária. Editor: Dawn Duke. Belo Horizonte: Nandyala, 2016.
• Artefatos da Cultura Negra no Ceará. Formação de Professores. Editors: Henrique Cunha Junior Cicera Nunes, Reginaldo Ferreira Domingos, Maria Saraiva da Silva, Rita de Cassia Felix Batista, Dawn Alexis Duke, Juliana de Holanda. Fortaleza, Ceará: Universidade Federal do Ceará et. al., 2013.

Book Reviews

• Oshun’s Daughters: The Search for Womanhood in the Americas. W. K. Valdes. In: Hispania. 98, 4 (December 2015): 838-839.
• Disconnect Desencuentro, N. Alonso. In: Hispania. 96, 4 (December 2013): 804.
• Considering Woman I & II. Short Stories, V. Pollard. In: Caribbean Writer. Literary Gem of the Caribbean. 26 (2012): 229-231.
• Caribbean Perspective on Modernity – Returning Medusa’s Gaze, M. C. Fumagalli. In: Caribbean Writer. 25 (2011): 381-384.
• Writing Identity. The Politics of Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Literature by E. K. F. Oliveira. In: Ellipsis. 8 (2010): 159-161.

Encyclopedia and Dictionary Entries

• “Miriam Alves” (vol.1, 81-82), Geni Guimarães (vol.2, 483-4), Esmeralda Ribeiro (vol.3, 801-2), Alzira Rufino (vol. 3, 808-9).”  In: The Encyclopedia of African Diaspora: Origins Experiences, and Culture. Ed. Carole Boyce Davies. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, Inc. 2008.
• “Black Feminism in Brazil.” In: Encyclopedia of Race and Racism. Ed. John Hartwell  Moore. Detroit: MacMillan Reference USA. Vol.1. 2008, 193-195.
• Research Assistant. The Caribbean Multilingual Dictionary of Flora, Fauna and Foods in English, French, French Creole and Spanish. Jeannette Allsopp. Kingston, Jamaica: Arawak Publications. 2003.

Translations

• “Those Who Go,” Nexus,” and “Manjuarí.” Nancy Morejón. From Cuba. Boundary 2. 29, no. 3 (Fall 2002):159-162.

Editorial Work

• Editorial Board. Osamayor. Journal of Graduate Students of the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures, Univ. of Pittsburgh. VII, núm. 14, otoño-primavera 2001.
• Main Editor and Coordinator for Literature. Osamayor. February 1999 to February 2001. Produced Volume 13 in January 2001.
• Contributing and Associate Editor. MaComère, Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars. September 1998 to August 2000.
• Editorial Board. Polyglot. Journal of the Humanities. 1997-1999.

Conference Annals (Peer Reviewed Published Conference Papers)

• “How Can Translation Be Taught? On the Value of an Academic Approach.”  Proceedings of the Fourth Caribbean and Latin American Language Conference. University of Guyana, NIHERST, OAS, UNESCO. (1997): 64-70.
• “Sobre a Ilusão da Nota de Tradutor” [Regarding the Illusion of the Translator’s Footnote] Estudos Linguísticos XXII Anais de Seminários do Grupo de Estudos Linguísticos. 1 (1994): 659 to 664.
• “Themes of Resistance in African Literature.”  ANAIS: XXV Seminário Nacional de Professores Universitários de Literaturas de Língua Inglesa. (1993): 53-58.

Phone: 865-974-7006

Email: dduke1@utk.edu

Education

Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh