# CV ##### ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT Lecturer in History and Literature, Harvard University, 2018-2025 Part-Time Faculty, Department of English, Boston College, 2024-2025 Lecturer in English, Harvard University, 2018-2020 Visiting Assistant Professor in Law, Jurisprudence, & Social Thought, Amherst College, 2017-2018 Lecturer in History and Literature, Harvard University, 2015-2017 ##### EDUCATION Ph.D., English, University of Pennsylvania (2015) Dissertation: “Violent Convictions: Punishment, Literature, and the Reconstruction of Race” Committee Members: Amy Kaplan (chair), Thadious Davis, David Kazanjian, Marie Gottschalk M.A., English, University of Pennsylvania (2011) B.A., English and American Literature and Language, Harvard University (2008) ##### RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS ###### Journal Articles: “‘An Extreme Sense of Protest against Everything’: Chester Himes’s Prison Novel.” American Literature 90.1 (2018). “Worst of the Worst: Rehabilitationist Roots of Life without Parole.” Law, Culture and the Humanities 17.3 (2021). First published online: 2017. “Paul Laurence Dunbar’s The Sport of the Gods and the Modern Discourse of Black Criminality,” J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists 4.1 (2016). ###### Reviews and Reference Entries: Review of Native Students at Work: American Indian Labor and Sherman Institute's Outing Program, 1900-1945, by Kevin Whalen. Native American and Indigenous Studies 7.1 (2020). “Lynching,” Oxford Bibliographies in African American Studies (2019). Oxford University Press. ##### HONORS, AWARDS, GRANTS, AND FELLOWSHIPS Culture Lab Innovation Fund Grant, Harvard Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, 2024 Harvard Urban Mellon Initiative Grant, 2023 Express Grant, Harvard Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, 2023 Certificate of Teaching Excellence, Harvard University, 2022, 2021, 2019, 2018, 2017 Provostial Fund for Arts and Humanities Grant, Harvard University, 2021 and 2018 Curricular Innovation Award, Mindich Center for Engaged Scholarship, Harvard University, 2020 Special Commendation for Extraordinary Teaching in Extraordinary Times, Harvard University, 2020 Jan Thaddeus Teaching Prize, History & Literature, Harvard University, 2020 Five College Center for Crossroads in the Study of the Americas Fellowship, 2017-2018 School of Arts and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching by Graduate Students, University of Pennsylvania, 2014-2015 Critical Writing Teaching Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 2014-2015 MLK Action Project Alumni Award, Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, Sudbury, MA, 2015 Kosciuszko Foundation Tuition Scholarship, 2014-2015 Graduate Humanities Forum Fellowship, Penn Humanities Forum, 2013-2014 Harvard University Undergraduate Commencement Address (English-language), June 2008 ##### PUBLIC HUMANITIES PROJECTS Norfolk Inmate Council Digital History Archive (forthcoming) Walpole 1973 NPRA Digital Archive: Documenting the Walpole Prison Takeover, Harvard University, launched 2025 () ##### LECTURES AND CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS “Writing through the Prison: Prison Blossoms and Angel Island Poetry,” History and Literature faculty research seminar, Harvard University, April 2024 Seminar organizer and presenter, “Angel Island as Prison Literature,” at the seminar “Prisons and Poetry,” Northeast Modern Language Association, Boston, MA, March 2024 “Captivity and Abolition in Boarding School Literature: Between Elmira and Carlisle,” Quarry Farm Symposium: Abolition, Center for Mark Twain Studies, Elmira, NY, October 2022 Co-organizer, Co-chair, and Seminar Participant, “Carceral Revolt,” American Studies Association, October 2021 Comment and Chair, “They Say Alt-Ac, We Say Fight Back!: Organizing for a Future in Academia & Beyond,” Northeast Modern Language Association, Boston, MA, March 2020 “Carlisle and the Domestication of the ‘Indian Problem,’” American Studies Association, Atlanta, GA, November 2018 “Captivity without Coercion: Thomas Mott Osborne and the Fantasy of the Democratic Prison,” Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, March 2018 “Resisting Insecurity Beyond the Academy,” Committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Rights and Responsibilities, Modern Language Association, New York, NY, January 2018 (Roundtable Participant) “Mob Scenes: Lynching, Conquest, and the Carceral State,” Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Brown University, Providence, RI, November 2017 (Invited Talk) “Life-without-Parole, Reform, and Abolition,” American Studies Association, Denver, CO, November 2016 “Narratives of Slavery and Incarceration: The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict,” C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, State College, PA, March 2016 (Roundtable Participant) “Public Safety and the Rhetoric of State Violence,” Modern Language Association, Austin, TX, January 2016 (Presenter and Panel Organizer) “Prison Literature, the Revictimization Relief Act, & the Future of Mass Incarceration,” Literature and Social Justice, Lehigh University English Graduate Conference, March 2015 “National Pastime: Lynching and Law-making during Jim Crow,” American Studies Association, Washington, DC, November 2014 (Presenter and Panel Organizer) “Prison Writing and Carceral Grammar in the 20th Century US,” Futures of American Studies Institute, Dartmouth College, June 2014 “A Wall Is Just a Wall: Prison Writing, Carceral Grammar, and the Abolitionist Imagination,” Modern Language Association, Chicago, IL, January 2014 “New Threadbare Lies: Modern Black Criminality Discourse and Its Critics, 1892-1902,” American Literature Reading Group, University of Pennsylvania, October 2013 “Civil Whiteness: Legitimate Violence and the Literature of Lynching,” Penn Program on Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism, University of Pennsylvania, February 2013 “The Joint: Hip Hop and Mass Incarceration,” English Graduate Student Organization Conference, SUNY Albany, April 2011 ##### ACADEMIC AND COMMUNITY SERVICE Organizer, “Justice-Impacted at Harvard: A Workshop on Inclusive Policies,” Harvard University, May 6, 2025; November 8, 2024 Convener, “Marlon Peterson in Conversation with Matthew Ichihashi Potts,” Mahindra Humanities Center, April 14, 2025 Organizer, “Creativity, Art, and Leadership in Prison and Beyond,” Mahindra Humanities Center, March 5, 2024 Co-Lead, “New Horizons in Higher Education after Prison,” Radcliffe Exploratory Seminar, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge, MA September 18-19, 2023 Co-Organizer, “When the Prisoners Ran Walpole,” Mahindra Humanities Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, March 22-23, 2023 Co-organizer, “Incarceration and Its Impact on Health,” Harvard Medical School Office for Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Partnership, Boston, MA, February 2022 Co-organizer, “Abolition and the Imagination: A Roundtable with Movement Leaders,” Mahindra Center for the Humanities, Cambridge, MA, November 2021 Co-Founder and Co-Coordinator, “Off the Ladder” (interdisciplinary non-tenure-track faculty research seminar), Harvard University, 2018-2020 Organizer, “Fighting Wrongful Convictions in the Age of Mass Incarceration” (panel discussion), Harvard University, April 22, 2019 Member, Committee on Instruction, History and Literature, Harvard University, 2018-2019 Member, Tutorial Board, Committee on Degrees in History and Literature, Harvard University, 2015-2017, 2018-present Graduate Admissions Reader, English Department, University of Pennsylvania, 2013-2014 Consultant, Interviewed for “Commonwealth,” Audience Channel, DirecTV (documentary film on school funding cuts and prison expansion), 2014 Member, Decarcerate PA (grassroots organization against mass incarceration), 2011-2017 Officer and Coordinator, English Graduate Association, 2010-2012 Co-organizer, “Political Prisoners, Politicized Prisoners: A Roundtable on State Violence and Radical Thought,” University of Pennsylvania, April 13, 2012 Co-coordinator, American Literature Reading Group, English Department, University of Pennsylvania, 2010-2011 ##### COURSES TAUGHT On the Run: Refugees, Fugitives, Outlaws, Boston College (Literature Core, English), Spring 2025, Fall 2024 Prison Abolition and Prison Literature, Harvard University (History and Literature), Fall 2024, Spring 2024 Prison Abolition, Harvard University (History and Literature), Spring 2023, Fall 2021, Spring 2021 On the Run: Refugees and Fugitives in American Literature, Harvard University (English), Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018 The American Prison and the Literature of Punishment, Harvard University (History and Literature), Fall 2019, Spring 2019, Spring 2017 Black New England, Harvard University (English), Fall 2018 Junior Tutorial in American Studies, Harvard University (History and Literature), 2018-2019 Fugitives in US Law & Literature, Amherst College (Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought), Spring 2018 The American Prison, Amherst College (Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought), Fall 2017 Race, Law, and American Literature, Amherst College (Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought), Fall 2017 Junior Tutorial in American Studies, Harvard University (History and Literature), 2016-2017 English/Writing Seminar, University of Pennsylvania (Pre-Freshman Program) University of Pennsylvania, Summer 2016; Summer 2015 Junior Tutorial in American Studies, Harvard University (History and Literature), 2015-2016 Reading Karl Marx, University of Pennsylvania (Critical Writing Program), Fall 2014; Spring 2015 Literature and Law: American Narratives of Justice and Injustice, University of Pennsylvania (English), Summer 2013 The Prison in American Literature, University of Pennsylvania (Critical Writing Program), Fall 2011; Spring 2012 ##### ADDITIONAL TEACHING Master of Liberal Arts Thesis Director, Harvard Extension School, 2024-2025 Senior Thesis Advisor, Harvard University (History and Literature), 2024-2025, 2023-2024, 2022-2023, 2021-2022, 2019-2020, 2015-2016 Independent Study Advisor, Amherst College (Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought), Spring 2018 Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) Certificate, University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2014 Teaching Assistant, “The Vietnam War in Literature and Film,” English Department, University of Pennsylvania, Professor Amy Kaplan, Spring 2011