Marlo David

mddavid@english.ufl.edu

http:/www.clas.ufl.edu/users/mddavid

EDUCATION

Doctoral Candidate in English, PhD in May 2008, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

Dissertation Committee Chair: Dr. Debra Walker King, Associate Professor of English

Dissertation:

'Mama's Gun': Radical Imaginings of Black Mothers in the Post-Civil Rights Era

The figure of “mother” is a powerful and recurrent symbol in African-American literature and culture, particularly as a signifier of tradition, family cohesion, strength, and survival. Many contemporary creative works navigate these representations of mother as well as the often precarious boundaries between self and other, family and nation in ways that are socially and politically transformative. By engaging with a number of feminist theories, most significantly black feminist literary theory, I wish to provide a bridge from the past to the future, a place where contemporary cultural production can be situated and understood within a framework of recent social and political changes. I call these expressive gestures “Mama’s Gun,” a vernacular trope that describes how black mothers are radically imagined as verbally and vocally resistant toward dominant ideologies that use and abuse their bodies, experiences and images.

Summer Intensive Program, Interrogating the African Diaspora, Summer 2006

Florida International University, Miami, FL

Master of Liberal Studies, May 2004, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL

Thesis: Folklore and Oral Culture in Black Women's Fiction: 1925-1975.

Adviser: Dr. Jennifer Henton, Assistant Professor of English

Bachelor of Science in Newspaper Journalism, May 1995

Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, FL

PUBLICATIONS

“AnalogGirl in a Digital World: Afrofuturism and Post-Soul Possibility in Black Popular Music” in The African American Review, Winter 2007 (forthcoming)

“More than Baby Mamas: Black Mothers and Hip-Hop Feminism” in Home Girls Make Some Noise: A Hip-Hop Feminism Anthology, 2007

“Mercedes Gilbert” entry in Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers, March 2007

PRESENTATIONS

Speaker, “Woman to Woman: Tyler Perry, Madea and the Problem of Saying 'Yes' to the Female Within” ~ Interventions in Black Gender and Sexuality Studies Conference at the University of Florida in Gainesville ~ March 2007

Speaker, “ ‘Analog Girl in a Digital World’: Afrofuturism, Neo-Soul Identity, and Black Popular Music” ~ Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States (MELUS) 20th Annual Conference in Boca Raton, FL ~ April 2006

Speaker, “I Know You Not Talkin’ ‘Bout My Mama: Black Mother Wit and the Politics of Resistance” ~ Heart’s Day Conference Howard University in Washington DC ~ February 2006

Speaker, “More than Baby Mamas: Black Women, Hip Hop and Procreative Power in the 21st Century” ~ The Association for Research on Mothering (ARM) at York University in Toronto, Canada, October 2005

Speaker, “From Fracture to Fusion: Mammy, Memory and Resistance in Erna Brodber’s Louisiana” ~ The Caribbean Literary Symposium at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA ~ April 2005

Speaker, “Romancing the Folk: Toward a Revision of Black Women’s Folk Tradition” Celebrating the African-American Novel Conference at Pennsylvania State University, April 2005

TEACHING

· Instructor, Introduction to African American Studies ~ AFA 2000 ~ Summer 2007

· Guest Lecture, “Masculinity in Black Popular Culture,” ~ AML 2410 ~ Black Masculinities in Black Popular Culture taught by Instructor Craig Smith, University of Florida, Fall 2006

· Guest Lecture, “Toni Morrison’s Beloved” ~ AML 3041 ~ Re/Writing America taught by Instructor Aaron Talbot, University of Florida, Fall 2006

· Guest Lecture, “Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement” ~ AML 2070 ~ 20th Century African-American Drama taught by Instructor Craig Smith, University of Florida, Summer 2006

· Guest Lecture, “Motherhood, Matriarchy and Popular Culture” ~ LIT 4535 ~ Women and Popular Culture taught by Dr. LaMonda Horton-Stallings, University of Florida, Spring 2006

· Guest Lecture, “bell hooks and the Politics of Blackness” ~ AML 2070 ~ Women of Color and the Poetics of Resistance taught by Instructor Angelique Nixon, University of Florida, Fall 2005

SERVICE

Secretary, Black Graduate Student Organization, University of Florida, 2006-2007

Coordinator, BGSO Annual Writer’s Workshop, University of Florida, March 2006

HONORS/AWARDS

McKnight Doctoral Fellowship, 2004-2008

Community Service Scholarship, Rollins College, 2002-2004

EMPLOYMENT

News Copy Editor, Orlando Sentinel, 2000- 2004

Features Copy Editor, San Jose Mercury News, 1998

Washington Correspondent, New York Times Regional Newspapers, 1996-1998

Education Reporter, Tallahassee Democrat, 1995-1996

REFERENCES

Dr. Debra Walker King

Associate Provost/ Associate Professor of English

University of Florida

Gainesville, Florida

352-392-6004

Dr. Tace Hedrick

Associate Professor of English

University of Florida

Gainesville, Florida

352-273-0390

Dr. LaMonda Horton-Stallings

Assistant Professor of English

University of Florida

Gainesville, Florida

352-392-6650

Dr. Kevin Everod Quashie

Associate Professor/ Chair of African American Studies

Smith College

Northampton, Massachusetts

413-585-3574