ACADEMIC POSITION:

• Instructor of Record, Louisiana State University, 2018-present 

EDUCATION:

• Ph.D. English | Louisiana State University | Expected Graduation May 2022 
• M.F.A. Creative Writing in Nonfiction | University of New Orleans | May 2018 
• B.A. Art History & B.A. Spanish Language | University of North Carolina | 2007

TEACHING AND RESEARCH FIELDS:

Ecocriticism; Postcolonial Theory; Early American Natural History; Modern and Contemporary Southern Literature; Southeastern Indigenous Literature 

DISSERTATION:

• Currently working on PhD dissertation titled, “Eco-Orientalism: Tracing Colonial Legacies within the Contemporary Climate Imagination.” Dissertation Committee: Dr. Pallavi Rastogi (Chair); Dr. Chris Barrett; Dr. Michael Bibler. 

PUBLICATIONS:

Books: 

• The Gulf South: An Anthology of Environmental Writing. Eds. Tori Bush & Richard Goodman. University Press of Florida, 2021.

Reviewed in Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (ISLE) and H-Net.

• Unheard Voices: An Anthology of Writing from Orleans Parish Prison. Chapbook published in collaboration with University of New Orleans, 2018.

Academic Articles: 

•  “Eco-Orientalism: Constructing Climate Migration on Isle de Jean Charles.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (ISLE). Spring 2022. 

Academic Book Reviews:

•  “Book Review: Sweet Spots: In-Between Spaces in New Orleans by Teresa Toulouse and Barbara Ewell” Southern Quarterly. Fall, 2021.
• “Book Review: Hidden Nature by Michael Ray Taylor” H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. April 2021.
• “Book Review: Art as We Don’t Know It by Erich Berger, Kasperi Mäki-Reinikka, Kira O’Reilly, Helena Sederholm” Pulse: The Journal of Science and Culture, Spring 2021.

Creative/Popular Journals

• “Tiny Instructions for Planetary Problems” South Writ Large. Summer 2021.
• “Author Interview: Liz Brina and Speak, Okinawa” New Delta Review. May 2021.
• “Against the Flow: Lessons from a River Diversion,” 64 Parishes, Spring 2018. 
• “An Archive Apart,” The New Orleans Advocate, January 2017. 
• “Harold Fisk’s Mississippi River Maps,” South Writ Large. Summer issue, 2016.

Manuscripts Reviewed:

• “Talking Trash: Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones and the Space of Disaster” for ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

Undergraduate courses taught at LSU:

• Rhetoric and Composition: English 1001, fall 2018.
• Rhetoric and Composition: English 2000, spring 2019.
• Rhetoric and Composition: English 1001, fall 2019.
• “Writing Louisiana” English 2000 special topics, spring 2020.
• “Writing Ecologies/Ecologies of Writing” English 2000 special topics, fall 2020.
• Rhetoric and Composition: English 2000, spring 2021.
• “Introduction to Fiction: The Postcolonial Novel” English 2025. fall 2021.
• “Writing Ecologies/Ecologies of Writing” English 2000 special topics, spring 2022.

Other Educational Spaces:

• Creative Writing, Orleans Parish Prison Women’s Population, 2015-2018.

OTHER WORK EXPERIENCE:

• Grant Writer, National WWII Museum. Wrote a grant which raised over $3 million dollars for the Museum. 2015-2018.
• Program Director, New Orleans Airlift & The Music Box. Produced, organized, and facilitated artist installations, residencies, and workshops. 2011-2015.

AWARDS, GRANTS, AND FELLOWSHIPS:

• LSU Graduate School Dissertation Year Fellowship Award 2022-2023
• Newberry Library Short Term Fellowship, Fall 2022.
• Gale Carrithers Critical Essay Award, “Eco-orientalism: Power Discourses on Isle de Jean Charles” Spring 2022.
• ASLE Graduate Student Conference Essay Award, “Eco-Orientalism: Constructing Climate Migration on Isle de Jean Charles” Summer 2021. 
• Gale Carrithers Critical Essay Award, ““(Un)mapping the Plantationocene: Sacrifice Zones as Afterlife of the Plantation System,” Spring 2021.
• English Department’s nominee for the HSS Outstanding Graduate Student Teacher Award, Spring 2022.
• Engaged Educator Distinction by University Writing Program, LSU. 2019, 2020, 2021 & 2022.
• Louis D. Simpson Travel Award. LSU University, Spring 2021 & Spring 2022
• Breadloaf Environmental Writers Conference Fellowship. Summer 2019.
• Monroe Fellowship, Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University. This fellowship supported work on my book, The Gulf South: An Anthology of Environmental Writing. 2017-18.
• Rebirth Grant, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. This grant supported work on my book, The Gulf South: An Anthology of Environmental Writing. 2017-18
• Carol Gelderman Award, Best MFA Thesis, University of New Orleans. 2018
• Finalist, Creative Capital Writers Fellowship. 2013.

CONFERENCES & PRESENTATIONS:

• “New Ecocritical Directions for Southern Studies” with Zachery Vernon, Isadora Wagner, and Jay Watson. Society for the Study of Southern Literature Conference, Atlanta, GA. June 2022.
• “Resilient Matter: A Conversation with Artist Adriana Corral, Scholar Tori Bush, Curator Andrea Andersson, and Tribal Lawyer Patty Ferguson-Bohnee. Ogden Museum of Southern Art. January 21, 2022. 
• “Culture and Environment Writing,” an evening with writers Tori Bush and Dr. Sarah McFarland for the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibit Water/Ways, January 13, 2022. 
• “Bodies of Water: The Coastal South and the Caribbean” Roundtable with Dr. Eric Solomon, Visiting Assistant Professor of English and American Studies at Oxford College of Emory University and Dr. Phillip Gordon, Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin. MLA conference. January 2022.
•  “Eco-Orientalism: Constructing Climate Migration on Isle de Jean Charles” EmergencE/Y: ASLE 2021 Virtual Conference. June 2021
• “Waterworks: New Works in Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities” An interview of new works in the environmental humanities presented by ASLE and PENN Program in Environmental Humanities. Panelists included Brian Russell Roberts, Craig Santos Perez, Steve Mentz, and Tori Bush. April 2021.
•  “(Un)mapping the Plantationocene: Sacrifice Zones as Afterlife of the Plantation System” Mardi Gras Conference, LSU. February 2021
•  “We Are Not Beasts: Deconstructing Representations of Climate Migration” Humanities on the Brink, ASLE Conference presentation. July 2020.
•  “Aesthetics of Climate Migration in Beasts of the Southern Wild.” Mardi Gras Conference, February 2020.
• “Sedimentation / Stratification: An Ecocritical Reading of Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE), UC Davis, June 26-30, 2019.
• Reading of creative nonfiction work in progress at Breadloaf Environmental Writers Conference, Middlebury University, June 2019.
•  “Southern Writers, Drinking” A roundtable on the imbibing traditions of Southern Literature. Gulf Coast Association of Creative Writing Teachers Conference, 2017.
• Reading in Collaboration with Orleans Parish Prison Creative Writing Class & Publication, University of New Orleans. October 2017.

DEPARTMENTAL AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE:

• Moderated Graduate Student Discussion with Potential Departmental Hires in Postcolonial Literature, January 2022.
• Organized spring 2021pedagogy workshop series on “Writing as a Political Act”
• Organized fall 2020 pedagogy workshop series on “Decolonizing the University Space”
• Moderator for LSU Conference, “Asian/Asian American Futures”
• Co-judged Sarah Liggett Teaching Award for EGSA, 2021. 
• Pedagogy Chair, English Graduate Student Association, 2020-2021
• Professionalization Chair, English Graduate Student Association, 2019-2020
• Member of Graduate Student healthcare committee which worked across departments with Dean Spencer and Dean Wicks to advocate for lower health care costs for graduate students across LSU, 2021.

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS:

• Member, Postcolonial Studies Association (PSA)
• Member, Society for the Study of Southern Literature (SSSL)
• Member, Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE)
• Member, Modern Language Association (MLA)