Department of

English & Comparative Literature

Myriam J. A. Chancy

Professor of English
214B McMicken Hall
513-556-5924
myriam.chancy@uc.edu
www.myriamchancy.com

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Education

Ph. D. (English), University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, 1994.

M.A., Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada, 1990.

B. A. (4YR, ADV; with honors), University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, 1989.

Professional Summary

** PLEASE NOTE: As of Fall 2014, Dr. Chancy will be moving permanently to the Department of Africana Studies where she will contribute to the building of a new Ph. D. in Africana Studies. **

Myriam J. A. Chancy, a Haitian-Canadian writer born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, completed her Ph. D. in English at the University of Iowa at the age of 24, in 1994, after having previously obtained her BA in English/Philosophy (4-YR ADV, with Honors), from the University of Manitoba (1989) and her MA in English Literature with specialization in African American Literature from Dalhousie University (1990). In 1997, at the age of 27, she was awarded early tenure on the basis of two influential books of literary criticism, Framing Silence : Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women (Rutgers UP, 1997) and Searching for Safe Spaces : Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile (Temple UP, 1997). As the first book-length study of its kind in English, Framing Silence was instrumental in inaugurating Haitian women’s studies as a contemporary field of specialization. In 1998, Searching for Safe Spaces, one of the first in the field of Caribbean Studies to argue for exile as a distinct feature of (Anglophone) Afro-Caribbean women’s literature, was awarded an Outstanding Academic Book Award by Choice, the journal of the American Library Association. In 2004, her work as the Editor-in-Chief (2002-2004) of the Ford funded academic/arts journal, Meridians : feminism, race, transnationalism was recognized with the Phoenix Award for Editorial Achievement (for redesign, cover art, and content) by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ). Her third academic book, From Sugar to Revolution: Women’s Visions of Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, closes a trilogy on Caribbean women’s literature (Wilfrid Laurier UP 2012). Dr. Chancy has also won teaching and mentoring awards for graduate teaching (LSU, 2009; ASU, 1999).

As a creative writer, Myriam Chancy garnered a shortlisting for Best First Book, Canada/Caribbean region category, of the Commonwealth Prize in 2004 for her first novel, Spirit of Haiti (London: Mango Publications, 2003), and published a second novel, The Scorpion’s Claw (Peepal Tree Press 2005) to critical praise. Her third novel, The Loneliness of Angels (Peepal Tree Press 2010), was awarded the 2011 Guyana Prize in Literature Caribbean Award for Best Fiction 2010. All three are taught in high schools and universities in Canada, the Caribbean and the U.S.

Dr. Chancy teaches courses in African Diaspora Studies, Caribbean Lit, Postcolonial Literature & Theory, Feminist Theory & Women’s Studies, and Creative Writing (Fiction); she previously held tenure-track positions at Vanderbilt University (Assistant), Arizona State University (Associate), Louisiana State University (Full), and visiting professorships at Smith College and the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has served as an expert panelist and reviewer for the NEH, the Prince Claus Fund, and continues to serve as an expert reviewer for numerous professional journals, university presses and tenure/promotion reviews nationally. A recent editorial advisory board member of PMLA, the journal of the Modern Language Association, she currently sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Haitian Studies (UC, Santa Barbara), the advisory board ofVoices For Our America (VOA) housed at Vanderbilt University, and the Advisory Council in the Humanities of the Fetzer Institute.

Positions & Work Experience

2009 to Present, Professor of English (Tenured), Department of English & Comparative Literature, University of Cincinnati, OH.

2007-2010, Professor of English (Tenured), Department of English (On leave 2009-10), Louisiana State University, LA.

2006-2007, Visiting Associate Researcher, Center for Black Studies & Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Black Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara.

2001-2001, Instructor. “Writing by the Bay” Creative Writing Class for Gifted Children, CTY/CAA Program, John Hopkins University, UCSC Site, Summer Sessions I and II.

1997-2004, Associate Professor (Tenured), Department of English; Women’s Studies and African American Program Affiliate (On Leave 2001-2004), Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.

1994-1997, Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track), Department of English, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.

Research Interests

Caribbean Women&39;s Literature; Creative Writing: Fiction & Memoir; Caribbean Literature; African American Lit. (Harlem Renaissance to the Present) & James Baldwin; 20th C. & Contemporary American Lit.; Transnational Women&39;s Literature; Feminist Theory; Postcolonial Theory & Literature; Canadian Lit.

Peer Reviewed Publications

(2011). “Floating Islands: Spectatorship and the Body Politic in the Traveling Subjectivities of John Edgar Wideman and Edwidge Danticat.”. Small Axe, 36.

Invited Publications

"The Sound of Water" (Excerpt from L.O.A.) Massachusetts Review. Summer 2010."

"“The Violence of Nationhood and the “politicization of memory” in Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones” in The Edwidge Danticat Reader, Ed. Martin Munro, University of Virginia Press, 2010."

"“Border Crossings: Zora Neale Hurston & Claude McKay’s Diasporic Travels, ” “The Harlem Renaissance Revisited: Politics, Arts, and Letters, ” An Anthology Ed. Jeffrey Ogbar. John Hopkins University Press: 2010."

"“Writing Movement: On Being A (Caribbean Woman) Writer/Scholar” in The Caribbean Woman Writer as Scholar, Ed. Carole Boyce Davies & Keshia Abraham, Caribbean Studies Press, 2009."

"“’Race’ Travels in a Post-Genocidal Age: Witnessing and (Re)Counting Rwanda » Cincinnati Romance Review 27 (2008): 1-15."

"“Dancing Words: Illness & the Writing Process” (Memoir Essay) (w/ 12 original photographs by the author, incl. cover) Calabash Vol. 5. No. 1 (Summer/Fall 2008)."

"Excerpt from The Loneliness of Angels, SmallAxe, No. 24 Fall 2007."

"5 poems in Brassage: An Anthology of Poems by Haitian women Ed. Claudine Michel, Marlene Racine-Toussaint and Florence Bellande-Robertson. California : The Multicultural Women's Press & UCSB Center for Black Studies, 2006."

"Excerpt from The Loneliness of Angels. Il Tolomeo (Journal of the University of Venice, Italy), Winter 2006."

Books

(2012). From Sugar to Revolution: Women's Visions of Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.[Link]

(2010). The Loneliness of Angels. Leeds, England: Peepal Tree Press.

(2005). The Scorpion's Claw. Leeds, England: Peepal Tree Press.

(2003). Spirit of Haiti. London, England: Mango Press.

(1997). Searching for Safe Spaces: Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

(1997). Framing Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Invited Presentations

Address & Literary Reading (04/17/2010). L.O.A.. "Women of the African Diaspora" Conference, University of Texas, El Paso.

Keynote Address (04/09/2010). Harvesting’ Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Zora Neale Hurston’s Literary (Dis)Articulation of Being. College Language Association, Brooklyn Marriott, Brooklyn, NY.

Guest Speaker (04/08/2010). The Mnemonics and Politics of Haitian women’s historical representation and contemporary (spiritual) survival, (includes reading from L.O.A.). Gold Room of the Student Center of Brooklyn College.

Invited Speaker (03/27/2010). Desecrated Bodies/Phantom Limbs: Post-Traumatic Reconstructions of Corporeality in Haiti/Rwanda. French Cultures of Embodiment Conference, Center for Body, Mind and Culture, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL.

Campus Address (03/24/2010). Telling Tales: History & the Mnemonics of Haitian Women’s (Spiritual) Survival (incl. reading from L.O.A.). Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina.

Keynote Address (03/17/2010). Floating Islands: Spectatorship and the Body Politic in the Traveling Subjectivities of John Edgar Wideman & Edwidge Danticat. Graduate Caribbean Lit. Conference, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras/Mayaguez.

Invited Speaker (03/12/2010). Hearing Our Mothers: Safeguarding Haitian Women’s Self-Representation & Practices of Survival in Visual/Virtual Archives. Beyond Silence: Meaning and Memory in the Noise of Haiti’s Present Colloquium (Keynote V. Y. Mudimbe), Bard College, NY, Sponsor: Human Rights Project.

Literary Reading (02/27/2010). Haiti Alive: A Fundraiser. With Lenelle Moise, Baoku and the Image Afro-Beat Band, Mike Helm, Janet Pressley, Regina M. Sewell, Kristina Moore, Dee Steele, Tracy Walker, and others, Great Hall, University of Cincinnati, Sponsored by Restavek Foundation.

Keynote Address (11/07/2008). (Re)Visioning the Black Caribbean: Spaces, Places, & Voices. 24th Annual Symposium on African American Culture & Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.

Keynote Speaker, (10/22/2010). Haiti and the Americas: Histories, Cultures, Imaginations Conference,. Florida Atlantic University.

Invited Speaker/Seminar Leader, (12/10/2010). Haiti in Literature & Ideology, Comparative Literature Program & School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty/Grad. Seminar. University of Maryland.

Creative Reading (02/06/2011). LOA, Antioch College Winter Reading Series. Antioch College.

Bartolomé de las Casas Lecture in Latin American Studies, (04/14/2011). “Submission or Omission: Haiti’s Challenge in Latin America.". University of Oregon.

(07/11/2012). Keynote Address, “Voice” Conference, Writer-in-Residence, Union Institute & University, Cincinnati, OH, July 11-13, 2012. .

Writer in Residence Union Institute & University, Cincinnati, OH, July 9-13, 2012. .

Honors & Awards

Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award, English Graduate Student Association (EGSA), LSU, 2009.

Nominated, Sigma Tau Delta (English Club), LSU, Favorite Professor Award, 2008.

Nominated for Prince Claus Award (by Amina Mama, South Africa), Netherlands, 2005.

Editor Emeritus, Meridians, 2005.

Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement (Meridians), Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ), 2004.

Shortlisted, Commonwealth Prize, Best First Book Category (Spirit of Haiti), Canada/Caribbean Region, 2004.

Martin Luther King, Jr., César Chàvez, Rosa Parks, Visiting Professorship, University of Michigan, 2000.

Mentor Appreciation Award, Preparing Future Faculty Program, Arizona State University, Main Campus, 1999.

Outstanding Academic Book Award (OAB), 1997-1998, for Searching For Safe Spaces: Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile (Temple UP, 1997), from Choice, American Library Association, 1999.

Pushcart Prize Nomination from Frontiers for “Sin Fronteras/ Sans Frontières: Women of Color Writing for Empowerment,” Essay Category, 1992.

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship, Government of Canada, 1990-1994.

Chancellor’s Prize in English in Creative Writing, University of Manitoba, 1988.

Camargo Foundation Fellow, Fall term, Cassis, France, 2001.

Guyana Prize in Literature Caribbean Award, Best Fiction 2010 -Awarded for the novel, _The Loneliness of Angels_ (Peepal Tree Press, 2010), Sept. 1, 2011 by the Trustees of the Guyana Prize, 2011.

Service

Editorial Advisory Committee, PMLA, Appointed, 06/01/2009 to 06/30/2012.

Expert Panelist. Humanities Focus Grants. National Endowment for the Humanities. Washington, D.C., 05/05/2003.

Editor, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism & Visiting Associate Professor of Women’s Studies, Smith College, 2002 to 2004.

Editorial Board, Journal of Haitian Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, Winter, 2000 to Present.

Contributing Editor, MaComère, Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars, Spring, 2000 to 2005.

Associate Editor & Book Review Co-Editor, Caribbean Literature, Callaloo, University of Virginia. Fall, 1999 to 2002.