Here at Montevallo, I teach upper-level classes in postcolonial literature, U.S. Southern literature, and literary modernism; sophomore world literature classes often structured around the idea of the "Black Atlantic"; and freshman composition, in which I stress logical argumentation. 

As a scholar, I work chiefly on the U.S. South from global, cultural-studies, and postcolonial perspectives.  I'm especially interested in finding connections where earlier scholars have emphasized disjunctions: for example, between the allegedly backward South and ultra-hip neighborhoods in places like L.A., New York, and Berlin; and, complementarily, between the South and the so-called Third World.  The larger aim is to use the South as a way of questioning "American exceptionalism" in American Studies and careless divisions between "global north" and "global south" in postcolonial theory.  Among other publication ventures, I coedit the book series The New Southern Studies for the University of Georgia Press and coedited the 2004 essay collection Look Away! The U.S. South in New World Studies for Duke University Press.  My own book manuscript, tentatively titled Alabama and the Future of American Cultural Studies, will be completed later in 2007.

From March through August of 2005 I was a Fulbright scholar at the Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik at Universität Dortmund in Dortmund, Germany, where I taught three graduate courses.  I would like to thank the Montevallo colleagues who took over my Spring 05 courses midsemester to help me accommodate the German academic calendar: Dr. Glenda Weathers, Dr. Kathy King, and Dr. Glenda Conway. I kept a Fulbright blog of my experiences, mainly so my students could share some of this opportunity to live in a very different culture.  I am excited that Montevallo and Dortmund have begun a student exchange program.

In my spare time, I volunteer at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens Library, and recently earned Alabama Master Gardener certification.  My particular interest is in garden design, and among other things I grow some relatively rare rhododendrons and dogwoods.  I hope to be able to contribute to Montevallo's Environmental Studies program as it develops.