Emanuela Kucik Associate Professor, English and Africana Studies |
Education
Teaching Interests
Alongside my joint appointment in the Department of English and the Africana Studies Program, I am affiliated with the Jewish Studies Program and the Women's and Gender Studies Program. I teach interdisciplinary courses that examine the intersections of race, genocide, and human rights violations through the study of twentieth-century and contemporary literature(s). In my courses, I help students understand how marginalized populations have used literature to combat violence and turn their stories into art and to highlight how literature emphasizes our global humanity.
Amid the world's violence, I lead students to literature to illustrate how authors have struggled with the same questions that haunt them, such as: “Where do I fit into freedom fighting movements? How can I help fix our world?” Using these questions as guideposts on a path to transformation, I create spaces in which students can find answers in the imaginative, creative possibilities of literature -- and in themselves.
I currently serve as the Director of the Africana Studies Program; the advisor to the Black Students Association; and the Inaugural Fellow in Muhlenberg’s Faculty Fellowship Program in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. I am also the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Graduate School Preparatory Program alongside Giancarlo Cuadra, Ph.D.
Research, Scholarship or Creative/Artistic Interests
I study twentieth-century and contemporary African American and American Literature; Human Rights and Genocide Literature; and Global Black Literature to produce work that highlights how literature can combat genocide, its precursors, and its reverberations.
My book, The Black Blood of Genocide, is a transnational literary history of how Black authors across the globe have used literature to raise awareness about anti-Black genocide in the Post-World War II Era. Black Blood is currently under contract with Columbia University Press and was selected to be part of a collaborative series between Columbia University Press and Howard University.
I was an invited contributor to a special issue of Central European History entitled “A Reusable Past: Explaining the Prominence of the Third Reich in Current U.S. Discourse” (December 2022). Additionally, my South Atlantic Review essay, “Fatal Categorizations,” which examines “passing” in twentieth-century African American literature alongside twenty-first century writing about Japanese American incarceration during World War II, was awarded the South Atlantic Review Essay Prize in January of 2021. I also contributed a chapter, “(Re)Framing Black Women’s Liberation,” to Editing the Harlem Renaissance (2021). In this chapter, I examine how contemporary editorial frameworks impact our understanding of the literature of twentieth-century Black women authors.
Professional Website