Our Faculty

Monique-Adelle Callahan

Assistant Professor of English

Contact Information

617-735-9913

Office Hours

Office: Administration Building, Room 434-D

Office hours: Monday and Wednesday, 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.; by appointment also

Education

Ph.D., M.A., Harvard University; B.A., Wellesley College

Bio

Writing has been a part of my life since I can remember and I have done my best to make a lifestyle of writing and reading. My graduate work focused on the transnational exchange of ideas about freedom among poets-three women in particular. This work took me through a series of explorations of Cuba, Brazil and the United States during the second half of the 19th century. I was especially curious about how poetic language-that is, metaphor-allows people to reimagine space, place, history and self.

More recently, my research focuses on contemporary poets and how they exhibit a cosmopolitan poetics in their work and how they envision an idea global citizenship. I am also interested in contemporary poetics as a form of prophetic utterance, building on the trope of the poet-prophet.

My current poetry project explores the experience of pregnant enslaved women in the Americas during the 19th and early 20th centuries. This project also explores how imperial, colonial and and slave holding forces influenced the evolution of generations, as well as, the role of the body in negotiating the liminality between life and death in the context of slave births. 

What I Love About Emmanuel:

I love Emmanuel's commitment to educating the whole person. I love its respect for the intellectual, social, and spiritual lives of students and faculty.

Courses I Teach

  • ENGL1205 Introduction to Literary Methods
  • ENGL2410 African American Literary and Cultural Giants: Toni Morrison and James Baldwin 
  • ENGL2413 African American Literature: A Tradition of Resistance
  • ENGL2506 Poetry Writing
  • ENGL3506 Advanced Poetry Writing
  • ENGL3405 Editing and Publishing a Literary Magazine
  • ENGL3605 Global Literature and Film

Publications + Presentations

Original Poems:

Books:

  • Anonymous; poems (Jacar Press) (2018).
  • Between the Lines: Literary Transnationalism and African American Poetics (New York: Oxford UP) March 2011.

Book Chapters

  • "Frances Harper and Reconstruction Poetry" A History of Nineteenth-Century American Women's Poetry.
    Eds. Jennifer Putzi and Alexandra Socarides. Cambridge University Press. (Spring 2017)

Articles:

  • "Poetry and the Ethics of Global Citizenship" CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 15.4 (Dec. 2013)
  • "Transnational Black Icons in the Poetry of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: Brazil's Zumbi and Cuba's Maceo" Loopholes and Retreats: African American Literature in the Nineteenth Century. (Lit Verlag Feb. 2009: 59-80)
  • "Race and Redemption in Cristina Ayala's 'Redención' and Frances Harper's 'Deliverance.'" Negritud: Revista de Estudios Afro-Latinoamericanos (Vol. II, No. 1 Verano 2008: 44-63)

Grants & Recognition

  • Winner, New Voices Award for Anonymous, Jacar Press
  • Semi-finalist, Ashanta Press Sawtooth Poetry Prize
  • Finalist Stillhouse Press Poetry Contest
  • Runner up Zone 3 Press First Book Award for Poetry
  • Honorable Mention May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize
  • Honorable Mention CSU Poetry Center First Book Prize
  • Cave Canem Scholarship, Poetry by the Sea: a Global Conference
  • Semi-finalist Elixir Press Antivenom Poetry Award
  • Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Derek Bok Center, Harvard University
  • Cave Canem Poetry Fellowship
  • David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies Travel Grant
  • Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS) Grant for dissertation research
  • Lemann Fellowship (David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies) for study in Brazil
  • Harvard Graduate Prize Fellowship
  • Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Fellowship
Academics