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Professor Maria Cristina Fumagalli

Professor
Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies (LiFTS)
Professor Maria Cristina Fumagalli
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  • Telephone

    +44 (0) 1206 872610

  • Location

    5NW.4.13, Colchester Campus

Profile

Biography

Maria Cristina Fumagalli came to 糖心Vlog in 1999 where she became Professor in the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies in 2011. In 2024 Maria Cristina was elected Fellow of the British Academy. In Spring 2025 she will be Visiting Scholar at Vassar College, US. Maria Cristina is the author of four monographs: Derek Walcott's Painters: A Life with Pictures (2023; 2025 paperback), the first book devoted to Derek Walcott's lifelong engagement with the visual arts; On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (2015; 2018 paperback), the first literary and cultural history which, bringing to the fore a compelling but, so far, largely neglected body of work, has the politics of borderline-crossing as well as the poetics of borderland-dwelling on Hispaniola at its core; Caribbean Perspectives on Modernity: Returning Medusa's Gaze (2009) which uses the myth of Medusa's gaze turning people into stone to describe the way North Atlantic modernity freezes its "others" into a state of perpetual backwardness that produces an ethnocentric narrative based on homogenization, vilification, and disempowerment that actively ignores what fails to conform to the story it wants to tell about itself; The Flight of the Vernacular: Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott and the Impress of Dante (2001) which is not only a record of what Dante means to the two contemporary poets but also a cogent study of Heaney鈥檚 and Walcott鈥檚 attitude towards language and of their views on the function of poetry in our time. Maria Cristina the editor of Special Issue on Hispaniola After the Earthquake, BLAR (Bulletin of Latin American Research), 32.4 (2013) and Agenda: Special Issue on Derek Walcott (2002-2003) which includes more than sixty contributors and whose centre-piece is Epitaph for the Young, an extraordinary but forgotten poem in twelve cantos that Walcott privately published when he was a teenager and reprinted here for the first time since 1949. Maria Cristina is co-editor (with B茅n茅dicte Ledent and Roberto Del Valle Alcal脿), The Cross-Dressed Caribbean: Writing, Politics, Sexualities (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013) and (with Peter Hulme, Owen Robinson and Lesley Wiley), Surveying the American Tropics: A Literary Geography from New York to Rio (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013). In 2006 she was one of the three investigators (with Peter Hulme and Owen Robinson) who secured funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for the project American Tropics: Towards A Literary Geography and in April 2012 she was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (December 2012-December 2013) to complete her third monograph, On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (2015). On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic has been launched in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique and in the UK and you can hear and Maria Cristina Fumagalli discussing the book with Alejandra Bronfman on the New Books in Caribbean Studies website. You can see a short film made in collaboration with OBMICA in the Dominican Republic on the 80th anniversary of the 1937 massacre entitled La Frontera Dominico-Haitiana: Pasado y Presente on YouTube. On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic is at the core of Maria Cristina's standalone Impact Case for REF2021 'Reconceptualizing troubled border relations: promoting cross-border collaboration, cooperation and solidarity between Haiti and the Dominican Republic in the wake of the denationalization crisis in Hispaniola'. Maria Cristina's fourth monograph, Derek Walcott's Painters: A Life with Pictures (2023) was supported by a Major Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust (2016-2019). You can read her blog on Derek Walcott and Peter Doig, Paramin, Morning (2016) for Wasafiri (17 December 2016). Maria Cristina's new project is entitled Painting the Caribbean 1850-1904. This collaborative project (with Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert) examines the understudied personal and artistic connections forged between a group of European, American, and Caribbean painters through travel and exposure to Caribbean reality at a crucial historical moment marked by socio-political, scientific, cultural, and artistic changes. Exploring in depth, for the first time, these dynamic and seminal connections, the project鈥檚 outcome, an interdisciplinary monograph entitled Painting the Caribbean (1850-1904), will advance our understanding of the history of representation of the region, its interconnections with the development of individual careers and major artistic movements, and will foreground the fundamental but neglected role of the Caribbean in modern art. This project is supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2023-24). A second interconnected volume for this project, entitled Repainting/Revisualising the Caribbean: Engaging the Past, (Re)Mapping the Future, looks at the reverberations of the work of the painters discussed in Painting the Caribbean (1850-1904) in contemporary Caribbean (both from the region and the diaspora) and Black American visual artists is also in preparation. Maria Cristina has written on (amongst others) Jacques Stephen Alexis, Dante Alighieri, Erna Brodber, Maryse Cond茅, Junot D铆az, Carlos Esteban Deive, Edwige Danticat, Seamus Heaney, Victor Hugo, Gary Klang, Gabriel Garc铆a M谩rquez, Jean M茅tellus, M茅d茅ric Louis 脡lie Moreau de Saint-M茅ry, Grace Nichols, Jean-No毛l Pancrazi, Marlene NourbeSe Philip, Ren茅 Philoct猫te, Jean-Baptiste Picquenard, Freddy Prestol Castillo, Jean Rhys, Manuel Rueda, M.P. Shiel, Madison Smartt Bell, Michael Thelwell, Evelyne Trouillot, Salom茅 Henriquez de Ure帽a, Marcio Veloz Maggiolo, Derek Walcott, the directors Israel C谩rdenas & Laura Amelia Guzm谩n, Perry Henzell, and Angel Mu帽iz, and the artists Polibio D铆az and Karmadavis. She has published in Agenda, Anales del Caribe; Ariel: A Review of International English Literature; Bulletin of Latin American Studies (BLAR); Cambridge Quarterly; Caribbean Quarterly; Commonwealth: Essays and Studies; Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos; Entertext; Irish University Review; Journal of Anglo-Italian Studies; Journal of Caribbean Literatures; Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Journal of Haitian Studies, Journal of West Indian Literature, Letture Classensi, New Comparison; New West Indian Guide; Sargasso: A Journal of Caribbean Literature, Languages and Culture; Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism; Wasafiri. She has contributed chapters/essays to many edited collections. Maria Cristina has co-produced, with Penny Woollard, the following plays by Derek Walcott: the UK premi猫re of Moon-Child (30 April 2011), directed by Derek Walcott; Pantomime (3-5 May 2012) directed by Derek Walcott; and the World premi猫re of O Starry Starry Night (2-4 May 2013) directed by Derek Walcott and Barbara Peirson (see websites below). Supervised PhD Theses: Laurel Eberle -Paramen, Pistarckles and Poppy Shows: Stories of Madness, Resistance, and Community in the Virgin Islands (2022) Yit Ho Joshua Ang -Fantastic Reality: Dystopia and Eco-Cosmopolitanism in Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro, and David Mitchell (2021) Rasha Alshalabi -Dominican-American Fiction between 1990 and 2010 (2016) Dennis L. M. Lewis -Speech, Voice and Parable: Reading and Writing through Auden (letters to Auden, a reading of his poems, and a serial poem of Barak Hussein Obama (2016) Penny Woollard -Derek Walcott's Americas: the United States of America and the Caribbean (2015) Sean Seeger -History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake: Non-linear Temporality in the Works of James Joyce and Derek Walcott (2015) Hazem Fadel -Contested Cities in Arab Writing (1969-1989) (2014) Mariya Ustymenko -Genuine Mess: Extratextuality in the Work of four American Women Poets (2013) William Kingsbury -Narrativising Afganistan: Outsider and Afghan Perspectives in Modern Fiction and Films (2013) Ben Thomas Jefferson -'If I listen, I can hear': Derek Walcott and Place (2012) Anne Schroder -Zombie Fictions: Possession, Consumption and Zombification in Recent Caribbean and U.S. literature (2012) Hanan Abou HatabArab Shakespeare: Six Arab Adaptations of Hamlet (2011) Malika Rebai Maamri,Cross-Cultural and Ideological Perceptions of the Other in: W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, Chinua Achebe and Assia Djebar (2009 - joint supervision with the University of Algiers).

Qualifications

  • BA Milan

  • PhD Sheffield

Appointments

糖心Vlog

  • Professor, Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, 糖心Vlog (2011 - present)

Research and professional activities

Research interests

Caribbean literatures, art and cinema

Open to supervise

literature and place

Open to supervise

border studies (especially concerning the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic)

Open to supervise

literature and the environment

Open to supervise

migration and literature

Open to supervise

human rights and literature

Open to supervise

literature and the visual arts

Open to supervise

contemporary poetry

Open to supervise

literary and filmic rewritings, adaptations, translation and comparative studies

Open to supervise

contemporary Caribbean and US relations (especially regarding the Dominican and Haitian Diasporas)

Open to supervise

the work of Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Junot Diaz, and Edwidge Danticat

Open to supervise

postcolonial studies

Open to supervise

women writing

Open to supervise

Italian cinema and literature

Open to supervise

Current research

Maria Cristina is currently writing her fourth monograph provisionally entitled Derek Walcotts Painters which focuses on the Nobel laureate Derek Walcotts relationship with the visual arts and for which she has been awarded a Major Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust (2016-2019).

Conferences and presentations

鈥業 nostri miti sono ignoranza, i loro letteratura鈥: decolonizzare mito ed epica: Derek Walcott e Omeros

Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, IV Edizione Festival Civitas Educationis, Festival Civitas Educationis, Enna, Italy, 13/11/2024

鈥淟as Mujeres son frontera鈥: pol铆ticas fronterizas, migraci贸n y desnacionalizaci贸n la Rep煤blica Dominicana鈥

Invited presentation, IV Congreso Internacional El Caribe en sus Literaturas y Culturas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina, 13/7/2024

鈥溾楢 perfection to West Indian Things鈥: Derek Walcott鈥檚 early years in St Lucia鈥

Caribbean Society Association Annual Conference, St Lucia, 6/7/2024

鈥淧ainting the Caribbean: 1850-1904鈥

Caribbean Society Association Annual Conference, St Lucia, 6/7/2024

鈥淓ast of Haiti:Voices from the Dominican Republic鈥

Society for Caribbean Studies Conference, Online, 5/7/2024

鈥淧ainting the Caribbean: 1850-1904鈥

Society for Caribbean Studies Conference, Online, 4/7/2024

鈥淟a alternativa del Nuevo Mundo de Derek Walcott: memoria colonial, im谩genes emblem谩ticas, y la 鈥減eque帽a gente鈥

Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, IV Congreso Internacional 鈥淓l Caribe en sus Literaturas y Culturas鈥, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba,, Argentina, 15/3/2024

ARTE Y LITERATURA PARA LA TRANSFORMACI脫N:LA CONSTRUCCI脫N DE NUEVAS NARRATIVAS PARA LA ISLA

Invited presentation, XII CONFERENCIA DE ESTUDIOS DE GÉNERO: Construcción de conocimientos para la igualdad, INTEC -, SANTO DOMINGO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, 28/11/2023

鈥樷楶aint the ordinary for what it is鈥: Derek Walcott鈥檚 paintings鈥

Society for Caribbean Studies Conference, Stephen Lawrence Centre - De Montfort University, Leicester, 8/7/2023

Derek Walcott's Painters: A Life with Pictures

New book in Caribbean Studies - Society for Caribbean Studies Conference, Stephen Lawrence Centre - Society for Caribbean Studies, Leicester, 7/7/2023

'Why Hispaniola Needs New Narratives'

Society for Caribbean Studies Conference, Stephen Lawrence Centre - De Montfort University, Leicester, 5/7/2023

The right to be understood and the right to understand oneself: genealogies and hospitality in Caryl Phillips鈥 Strange Fruit

Invited presentation, Caryl Phillips Genealogies, Université de Liège, 16/6/2023

Visual surprise, the 鈥榮igh鈥 of History, and naming/painting the Caribbean: Derek Walcott鈥檚 ecopoetics/Sorpresa visual, el 鈥榮uspiro鈥 de la Historia, y nombrar/pintar el Caribe: la ecopo茅tica de Derek Walcott

Invited presentation, IX Coloquio Internacional La Diversidad Cultural en el Caribe Paisajes, derechos de la naturaleza y ecopoéticas en el Caribe, Casa de las Américas, Habana, Cuba, 15/5/2023

Not only here but here: solidarity and sorority

Dominican Studies Association, Hostos Community College, New York, United States, 2/12/2022

鈥淣ational Epics: The Dominican Republic鈥,

Invited presentation, National Epics, Moore Institute, Galway, Ireland webinar, 28/10/2022

鈥淣arrative suturing and un-sutured wounds: Derek Walcott鈥檚 鈥楢merican Muse鈥 and Walker Evans鈥檚 鈥楢nnie Mae Gudger鈥,

Society for Caribbean Studies 46th Annual Conference, Society for Caribbean Studies 46th Annual Conference, online, 7/7/2022

鈥淒ar a luz: Haitian and Dominican Women of Haitian descent and the politics of 鈥榖ordering鈥欌

Society for Caribbean Studies Conference, Society for Caribbean Studies, online, 6/7/2022

Return to the Future: the Dominican Republic and Haiti post-Covid-19

Society for Caribbean Studies 44th Annual Conference, 9/7/2021

"Lifting the canvas from the museum鈥 Derek Walcott鈥檚 Omeros

Society for Caribbean Studies 44th Annual Conference, 6/7/2021

Stranger Than Fiction: Opportunities for a New Narrative in Dominico-Haitian relations聽under聽Covid-19 and new preliminary on-the-ground research

Dominican Studies Association, The Bronx, United States, 5/12/2020

Humans and animals at the centre of the world: of pets, pests, pigs and shape-shifters

Dominican Studies Association, The Bronx, United States, 4/12/2020

鈥溾楳y main man's sea-smart Odysseus鈥: Homer, Derek Walcott, et Romare Bearden,

Invited presentation, Adaptations du texte littéraire américano-caraïbe: formes et enjeux, Schoelcher, Martinique, 20/11/2019

Border Narratives & Hispaniola

Invited presentation, Discover Culture - Public Lectures, Cork, Ireland, 27/9/2019

鈥樷淪olidarity is Our Wealth鈥: Representing and Navigating the Transnational Neighbourhoods and Communities of Santo Domingo鈥

xploring the Transnational Neighbourhood Integration, Community, and Co-Habitation, UCD Humanities Institute, Dublin, Ireland, 25/9/2019

Smiling Sharks: Derek Walcott, Winslow Homer, and J.M.W. Turner

Slavery and its Afterlives: Blackness, Representation, Social Justice, Vision, London, United Kingdom, 8/7/2019

Formidable Things, Shocks, and Revelations鈥: Derek Walcott and Warwick Walcott Landscaping St Lucia

43rd Society for Caribbean Studies Conference (SCS) 3-5 July 2019., Institute for Black Atlantic Studies (IBAR), Preston, United Kingdom, 4/7/2019

Epics of the Caribbean: Derek Walcott's Omeros (and the shopkeeper鈥檚 view)

Invited presentation, Invited Seminar, Udine, Italy, 26/11/2018

Citizenship and migration: Santo Domingo before la sentencia

Invited presentation, 2018 Biennal Dominican Studies Association Conference, The Bronx, United States, 16/11/2018

Monsieur Seven Seas: A Tribute to Derek Walcott

Invited presentation, Monsieur Seven Seas: A Tribute to Derek Walcott - ticketed event, London, United Kingdom, 21/9/2018

Frescoes of the New World: Derek Walcott's Drums and Colours and Diego Rivera

Invited presentation, The Young Walcott - ticketed event, British Library, Knowledge Centre, London, United Kingdom, 13/7/2018

'"Great Painting is Beauty Without Speech": Derek Walcott and the Visual Arts'

Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, International Conference in Tribute to Derek Walcott Invited Key-note, Alcala de Henares, Spain, 9/7/2018

鈥業f this were a portrait鈥: Derek Walcott, Harold Simmons, and Dunstan St Omer

Society for Caribbean Studies 42nd Annual Conference, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London, United Kingdom, 5/7/2018

Urban borders: Santo Domingo before 2013

Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, Global Dominican: Politics, Economics and Cultural Production Invited Speaker; On the Edge singled out in the Call for Paper for its 'masterful reading' of border relations, Senate House, London, United Kingdom, 22/6/2018

鈥楢merica is more our country, than it is the whites--we have enriched it with our blood and tears鈥: David Walker, Derek Walcott and the African American experience.

Seamed By Its Own Bitter Juice: Voice, Visibility, Literacies, Eccles Center, British Library, London, United Kingdom, 20/6/2018

On the Edge - Book Launch - Casa del Caribe, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba

Invited presentation, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, 13/6/2018

On the Edge - Book Launch -Casa de la Diversidad Cultural, Camaguey, Cuba

Invited presentation, Camaguey, Cuba, 11/6/2018

On the Edge - Book Launch Ignatio de Loyola - Social and Cultural Centre, Reina, Havana, Cuba

Invited presentation, Ignatio de Loyola - Social and Cultural Centre, Reina, Havana, Cuba, 8/6/2018

鈥楾hose mornings when I imagined myself a painter鈥: Derek Walcott鈥檚 early years in St Lucia.

43rd Conference Caribbean Studies Association, Havana, Cuba, 7/6/2018

On the Edge - Book Launch, Casa de las Americas, Havana, Cuba

Invited presentation, Havana, Cuba, 5/6/2018

鈥楳y name is not Hait铆, it is Janvier and I have my c茅dula鈥: Cristo Rey (2013) and the representation of ethnic and racial diversity in the Dominican Republic.

43rd Caribbean Society Association, Havana, Cuba, 4/6/2018

鈥樷淎 vehemence that is the same as love鈥: Derek Walcott and Peter Doig鈥檚 Morning Paramin鈥,

Invited speaker, School of Literature, Language & Linguistics, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, 8/11/2017

La frontera dominico-haitiana: pasado y presente

Invited presentation, La frontera dominico-haitiana: pasado y presente - Public Speaker - Even co-organized with OBMICA, Santo Domngo which also co-produced this video related to various activities carried out to commemorate the 1937 massacre in the Dominican borderland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YruDo3mjfpU, Centro Cultural Pablo Duarte, Comendador, Dominican Republic, 6/10/2017

Perspectivas literarias y artisticas de Haiti y Republica Dominicana y la masacre de 1937

Invited presentation, 80 años de la masacre de 1937: Reconstruyendo la memoria - Invited Speaker, Sala Julio Ravelo, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 10/2017

M.C. Fumagalli, Derek Walcott at 糖心Vlog: A Tribute, Society for Caribbean Studies Conference 2017, 糖心Vlog, 5 July 2017.

Invited presentation, Invited to deliver this tribute by the Chair of SCS, Colchester, United Kingdom, 5/7/2017

M.C. Fumagalli, Maria Cristina Fumagalli, Orchestrating the Verbal and the Visual in Morning Paramin (2016), Society for Caribbean Studies Conference 2017, 糖心Vlog, 5 July 2017.

Colchester, United Kingdom, 1/7/2017

In Transit - Denouncing Insecurity in the Dominican Republic

Caribbean In/Securities and Creativity: Diasporic Dialogues,, The Knowledge Centre, London, United Kingdom, 26/6/2017

From the 1937 Massacre to Civil Genocide: Continuities and Discontinuities from Manuel Rueda's Bienvenida y la Noceh: Cronicas de Montecristi to Karmadavis's Visitante (A)Temporal

Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, 6th edition of Coloqui Internacional - La Diversidad Cultural en el Caribe: Memoria y Conflcto de Frontera, 22-26 May 2017 Key-note Invited Speaker, Havana, Cuba, 22/5/2017

The 1937 Masacre 80 Years Later: Language, Genocide, Reconciliation in the Dominican Republic

Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, The 1937 Masacre 80 Years Later: Language, Genocide, Reconciliation in the Dominican Republic Key-note Invited Speaker, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 7/5/2017

M.C. Fumagalli, Relation vs Paragon: Derek Walcott ekphrastic practices in Morning Paramin (2016), CEREP (Centre dEnseignement et de Recherche en Etudes Postcoloniales / Centre for Teaching and Research in Postcolonial Studies) - Liege, Belgium, 6 March 2017.

Invited presentation, Invited Speaker, Liege, Belgium, 6/3/2017

Derek Walcott's Lapeyrouse Wall

Invited presentation, Voices Celebrating Derek Walcott - Invited Speaker for Nobel Week, National Celebration of Derek Walcott's Nobel Prize for Literature, Government House, Castries, Saint Lucia, 23/1/2017

M.C. Fumagalli, Derek Walcott: Going Beyond the Literary - Methods for Caribbean Interdisciplinarity American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Conference 2017, Utrecht University, 6-9 July 2017.

Utrecht, Netherlands, 2017

M.C. Fumagalli, One of those things / that a corbeau passes: Rethinking belonging with Derek Walcott's and Peter Doig's Morning, Paramin, Casa de las Americas, Havana, Cuba, 1 June 2017.

Invited Speaker, Havana, Cuba, 2017

M.C. Fumagalli, Migration forcee et Hispaniola:perspectives litteraires et artistiques, Festival 4 Chemins, Port au Prince, Haiti, 2nd December 2016

Invited presentation, Invited Speaker, Port au Prince, Haiti, 2/12/2016

M.C. Fumagalli, Le mystere de l'espoir: passe, present et futur, Festival 4 Chemins, Port au Prince, Haiti, 29 November 2016 (broadcast in its entirety by Radio Tele Ginen).

Invited presentation, Invited Speaker, Port au Prince, Haiti, 29/11/2016

M.C. Fumagalli, launch of On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (LUP 2015) CRPLC- Amphithetre Sellaye, Campus de Schoelcher, Martinique, 17 October 2016. Available online (in French): Manioc- Biblioteqhe Numerique Caraibe Amazonie Plateau des Guyanes: http://www.manioc.org/fichiers/V16272.

Book Launch, Martinique, Haiti, 17/10/2016

M.C. Fumagalli, Penser les frontieres et les appartenances depuis la Carabe et dans les Ameriques, Haiti - Republique Dominicaine : La fabrique des apatrides, Round Table, CRPLC- Amphithetre Sellaye, Campus de Schoelcher, Martinique, 17 October 2016. Available online (in French): Manioc- Biblioteqhe Numerique Caraibe Amazonie Plateau des Guyanes: http://www.manioc.org/fichiers/V16274

Invited Speaker at Round Table, Martinique, Haiti, 17/10/2016

M.C. Fumagalli, Artistes contemporains, migration et denationalisation en Hispaniola, Memorial Acte - Festival International du Film des Droits de l'Homme de Guadeloupe, 12 October 2016.

Invited Speaker at the Festival, Guadeloupe, 12/10/2016

M.C. Fumagalli, Au bord de l'espoir: Haiti et la Republique Dominicaine, ECMEA-CRILLASH - Campus du Camp Jacob - Saint Claude, Guadeloupe 11 October 2016.

Invited presentation, Invited Speaker, Saint Claude, Guadeloupe, 11/10/2016

Dignity has no nationality: Haitian migration and Citizenship in the Dominican Republic

Society for Caribbean Studies Conference SCS, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, 5/7/2016

Then, with slow strokes, the master changed the sketch鈥: Harold Simmons, Derek Walcott, Dustan St Omer and pre-independence St Lucia鈥

American Networks: Radicals Under the Radar (1868-1968), Notre Dame, United States, 1/7/2016

M.C. Fumagalli, launch of On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (LUP 2015) -FOKAL-Fondation Connaissance et Liberte, Port-au-Prince, 8 June 2016.

Book Launch, Port au Prince, Haiti, 8/6/2016

鈥溾楢re we not men鈥: names, animals and Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic鈥 / 鈥溾楢re we not men鈥: nombres, animals y migrantes Haitianos en la Republica Dominicana鈥 /鈥濃楢re we not men鈥: noms, animaux et les immigrants ha茂tiens en R茅publique Dominicaine鈥

Caribbean Studies Association CSA Annual Conference, Port au Prince, Haiti, 6/6/2016

M.C. Fumagalli, The Nobel Laureate Week Folk Research Centre Lecture: Audubon, Another Vision, Derek Walcotts White Egrets and Adams task of giving things their names, 19 January 2016, Folk Research Centre, St Lucia (broadcast in its entirety by The National Television Network and Radio St. Lucia).

Invited presentation, Invited Speaker to launch Nobel Week in St Lucia, a national celebration of Derek Walcott's Nobel Prize Award, Castries, Saint Lucia, 19/1/2016

M.C. Fumagalli, launch of On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (LUP 2015), ILAS-Institute for Latin American Studies, Senate House, London, 4 December 2015.

Invited presentation, Book Launch - Invited, London, United Kingdom, 4/12/2015

M.C. Fumagalli, Dante, Derek Walcott e l'esilio, Biblioteca Classense, Ravenna 17 October 2015.

Invited presentation, Invited Speaker to celebrate Dante鈥檚 750th anniversary, Ravenna, Italy, 17/10/2015

鈥楧erek Walcott and Transatlantic Visual Culture: Pissarro, Gauguin and the Centrality of the Caribbean鈥

Transatlantic Visual Culture: Pissarro, Gauguin and the Centrality of the Caribbean鈥, Symbiosis - Transatlantic Studies Conference,, Colchester, United Kingdom, 10/7/2015

-鈥楾hese birds keep modelling for Audubon鈥: 鈥榃hite Egrets鈥 and Derek Walcott鈥檚 Ornithological Imagination鈥

Society for Caribbean Studies Conference SCS, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 5/7/2015

M.C. Fumagalli, Audubon, Another Vision: Derek Walcotts White Egrets and Adams task of giving things their names, Poetry is an Island: Walcotts Topographies, Ludwig Maximilians Universitat, Munich 21-23 May 2015.

Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, Key-Note Speaker Invited, Munich, Germany, 21/5/2015

M.C. Fumagalli, Altered States, Nothingness, and States of Emergency: La Frontera in Junot Diaz's Monstro and Frank Baez's Ahora es Nunca, Altered States: Configuring Madness in Caribbean Literature, University of Liege, Belgium, 23- 24 April 2015.

Invited presentation, Invited Speaker, Liege, Belgium, 23/4/2015

M.C. Fumagalli, launch of On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (LUP 2015) -Galeria de Arte Casa Quien, Santo Domingo, 16 April 2015.

Invited presentation, BOOK LAUNCH, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 16/4/2015

M.C. Fumagalli, Not walled facts, their essence - Derek Walcotts Tiepolos Hound (2000) and Camille Pissarro, Illuminating Lives: The Biographical Impulse in Postcolonial Literatures-International Symposium, University of Liege, 2-3 March 2017.

Invited presentation, Liège, Belgium, 2000

M.C. Fumagalli, From the 1937 Massacre to Civil Genocide: Continuities and Discontinuities from Manuel Rueda's Bienvenida y la noche: Cronicas de Montecristi to Karmadavis's Visitante (A)temporal / De la masacre de 1937 al genocidio civil: Continuidades y Descontinuidades de Bienvenida y la noche: Cronicas de Montecristi de Manuel Rueda a Visitante (A)temporal de Karmadavis, 6th Edition of Coloquio Internacional La Diversidad Cultural en el Caribe: Memoria y Conflicto de Frontera, Havana, Cuba, 22-26 May 2017.

Havana, Cuba, 1937

M.C. Fumagalli, The 1937 Massacre 80 years later, Language, Genocide, Reconciliation in the Dominican Republic, University of Birmingham, 8 May 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFQhV7ufYI0

Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 1937

Teaching and supervision

Current teaching responsibilities

  • Independent Literature Project (LT831)

  • Introduction to Caribbean Literature (LT262)

Previous supervision

Yit Ho Joshua Ang
Yit Ho Joshua Ang
Thesis title: To the Ends of the Earth: Post-Anthropocene Cosmopolitanism in the Novels of Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, and David Mitchell
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 3/5/2022
Laurel Eberle
Laurel Eberle
Thesis title: A Real Poppy Show: Tales of Madness, Resistance, and Community in the British Virgin Islands
Degree subject: Creative Writing
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 14/5/2021
Mattia Mantellato
Mattia Mantellato
Degree subject: Occasional Study: Literature (Research)
Degree type: Occasional Postgraduate Study
Awarded date: 30/9/2019
Rasha Al Shalabi
Rasha Al Shalabi
Thesis title: Mapping the Dominican-American Experience: Narratives By Julia Alvarez, Junot Diaz, Loida Maritza Perez and Angie Cruz
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 13/4/2017
Dennis Lennox Morrison Lewis
Dennis Lennox Morrison Lewis
Thesis title: Speech, Voice and Parable: Reading and Writing Through Auden (Letters to Auden, a Reading of His Poems, and a Serial Poem of Barack Hussein Obama)
Degree subject: Creative Writing
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 29/6/2016
Hazem Fadel
Hazem Fadel
Thesis title: Contested Cities in Arab Writing (1969-1989)
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 9/6/2015
Penny Woollard
Penny Woollard
Thesis title: Derek Walcott's Americas: The United States of America and the Caribbean
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 15/5/2015
Sean Anthony Seeger
Sean Anthony Seeger
Thesis title: 'History Is a Nightmare From Which I Am Trying to Awake': Non-Linear Temporality in the Works of James Joyce and Derek Walcott
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 11/1/2015
Kai Su Wu
Kai Su Wu
Degree subject: Occasional Study: Literature (Research)
Degree type: Occasional Postgraduate Study
Awarded date: 2/10/2013
Mariia Ustymenko
Mariia Ustymenko
Thesis title: Genuine Mess: Extratextuality in the Work of Four American Women Poets
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 17/6/2013
William John Kingsbury
William John Kingsbury
Thesis title: Narrativising Afghanistan: Outsider and Native Perspectives in Modern Fiction and Films
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 12/6/2013

Publications

Journal articles (35)

Fumagalli, M. and Wooding, B., (2023). . OBMICA

Fumagalli, MC., (2020). . Journal of Commonwealth Literature. 55 (3), 421-432

Fumagalli, MC., (2019). . Anales del Caribe. 2018

BLUM, H., ECKEL, LE., FUMAGALLI, MC., SHU, Y., ROBERTS, BR. and STEPHENS, MA., (2019). Roundtable - Brian Russell Roberts and Michelle Ann Stephens (eds.), Archipelagic American Studies (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017, $30.95). Pp. 496. isbn978 0 8223 6346 0.. Journal of American Studies. 53 (2)

Fumagalli, MC., (2018). . New West Indian Guide. 92 (3-4), 245-273

Fumagalli, MC., (2017). . Wasafiri. 32 (4), 53-58

Fumagalli, MC., (2016). . Letture Classensi. 45, 67-83

Fumagalli, MC., (2015). . New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids. 89 (3-4), 231-257

Fumagalli, MC., (2014). . Caribbean Quarterly. 60 (3), 1-18

FUMAGALLI, MC., (2013). . Bulletin of Latin American Research. 32 (4), 421-437

FUMAGALLI, MC., (2013). . Bulletin of Latin American Research. 32 (4), 391-393

Fumagalli, MC., (2013). Special Issue on Hispaniola After the Earthquake - guest editor Fumagalli, MC. BLAR (Bulletin of Latin American Research). 32 (4)

Fumagalli, MC., (2012). . Journal of Haitian Studies. 18 (2), 100-118

Fumagalli, MC., (2011). . New West Indian Guide. 85 (3&4), 169-190

Fumagalli, MC., (2011). . Sargasso, A Journal of Caribbean Literature, Language, and Culture. I & II, 89-104

Fumagalli, MC., (2007). 'Border (Un)Writing: Victor Hugo's Bug-Jargal'. EnterText. 7 (1), 178-195

Fumagalli, MC. and Patrick, PL., (2006). . Small Axe. 10 (2), 61-79

Fumagalli, MC., (2006). 'My Pen Replaced a Brush': Derek Walcott's Tiepolo's Hound and Brushing History against the Grain. Commonwealth (Paris, France). 28 (2), 81-94

Fumagalli, MC., (2005). A conversation with Derek Walcott on Dante. Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos. 666 (666), 87-98

Fumagalli, MC., (2003). Epitaph for the Young: Culture or mimicry?. Agenda. 39 (1-3), 51-76

Fumagalli, MC., (2003). 'The Smallest Cell Remembers': She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks and Marlene Nourbese Philip's Journey Back to Africa. EnterText: An Interactive Interdisciplinary E-Journal for Cultural and Historical Studies and Creative Work. 3 (2), 162-179

Fumagalli, MC., (2003). Names Matter. Journal of Caribbean Literatures. 3 (3), 123-132

Fumagalli, MC., (2002). Special issue on Derek Walcott (Foreword). AGENDA. 39 (1-3), 11-13

Fumagalli, MC., (2002). Maryse Cond茅's La Migration des Coeurs, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea and (the Possibility of) Creolization. Journal of Caribbean Literatures. 3 (2), 65-87

Fumagalli, MC., (2002). Representing the world instead of reproducing it: M. P. Shiels The Purple Cloud. Ariel. 33 (1), 63-82

Fumagalli, MC., (2002). . Agenda. 39 (1-3), 11-416

Fumagalli, MC., (2000). Derek Walcott's Omeros and Dante's Commedia: Epics of the Self and Journeys into Language. The Cambridge Quarterly. XXIX (1), 17-36

Fumagalli, MC., (2000). 'Lo Stilo della Sua Loda or The Style of Her Praise: Dante's Vita Nuova and Derek Walcott's Another Life'. Journal of West Indian Literature. 9 (1), 42-70

Fumagalli, MC., (1998). "Seeing Things: Seamus Heaney鈥檚 Poetry of Paradise". New Comparison. 25, 126-140

Fumagalli, MC., (1997). 'What Dante Means To Me': Seamus Heaney's translation of the First Three Cantos of Dante's 'Inferno'. AGENDA. 34 (3-4), 204-234

Fumagalli, MC., (1997). The eternal fountain of poetic imagination: Seamus Heaney's translation of Juan de la Cruz's 'Cantar de la alma que se huelga a conoscer a Dios por fee'. AGENDA. 35 (2), 162-173

FUMAGALLI, MC., (1996). 'STATION ISLAND' - HEANEY,SEAMUS 'DIVINA COMMEDIA'. IRISH UNIVERSITY REVIEW. 26 (1), 127-142

Fumagalli, MC., (1996). Todo se altera, nada se destruye: La versi贸n de Marlene Nourbese Philip sobre el rapto de Proserpina de Ovidio y Homero. Anales del Caribe: Centro de Estudios del Caribe. 16-18, 273-285

Fumagalli, MC., (1996). The Reversible World: Poetry and the West Indies. Caribana. 5, 159-171

Fumagalli, MC., (1995). Seamus Heaney's Northern Irish 'Ugolino': An 'Original Reproduction' of the Dantean Episode. Journal of Anglo-Italian Studies. 4, 124-143

Books (7)

Fumagalli, M., (2023). Derek Walcott's Painters: A Life in Pictures. Edinburgh University Press. 1399512137. 9781399512138

Fumagalli, MC., (2015). . Liverpool University Press. 9781781381601

Fumagalli, MC., Del Valle Alcala, R. and Ledent, B., (2014). The Cross-Dressed Caribbean Writing, Politics, Sexualities. University of Virginia Press. 0813935245. 9780813935249

Fumagalli, MC., Hulme, P., Robinson, O. and Wylie, L., (2013). . Liverpool UP. 9781846318900

Fumagalli, MC., (2009). . University of Virginia Press. 9780813928586

Fumagalli, MC., (2001). The Flight of the Vernacular: Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott and the Impress of Dante. Brill/Rodopi. 9789042014763

Fumagalli, MC., (2001). The Flight of the Vernacular. BRILL. 9789042014763

Book chapters (21)

Fumagalli, MC., Foreword - Freddy Prestol Castillo El Masacre se pasa a pie / You can cross the Masacre on foot. In: You can cross the Masacre on foot / El Masacre se pasa a pie. Duke University Press

Fumagalli, M., (2023). 鈥楢 Bulwark against Intolerance and Hospitality as Praxis鈥. In: Caryl Phillips's Genealogies. Editors: Munos, D., O'Callaghan, E. and Mergeai, M., . Cross/Cultures. 9004545549. 9789004545540

Fumagalli, MC., (2023). A Bulwark against Intolerance and Hospitality as Praxis. In: Caryl Phillips鈥檚 Genealogies. BRILL. 255- 259. 9789004545540

Fumagalli, M., (2022). Ways of Seeing: Derek Walcott and the Visual Arts. In: Tributes to Derek Walcott, 1930-2017: In Various Light,. Editors: Doumerc, E. and Goethals, H., . Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 1-5275-8401-1

Fumagalli, M. and Wooding, B., (2021). Memorialization, solidarity, ethnically mixed couples, and the mystery of hope: mainstreaming Border of Lights. In: The Border of Lights Reader. Editors: Paulino, E. and Myers, M., . Ahmerst College Press. 162- 170

Fumagalli, MC. and Wooding, B., (2021). . In: The Border of Lights Reader: Bearing Witness to Genocide in the Dominican Republic. Editors: Myers, MJ. and Paulino, E., . Amherst College Press. 162- 170. 978-1-943208-27-2

Fumagalli, M., (2020). 鈥榃hen dialogue is no longer possible, what still exists is the mystery of hope鈥: migration and citizenship in the Dominican Republic in film, literature and performance.. In: Border Transgression and Reconfiguration of Caribbean Spaces. Editors: Mo茂se, M. and R茅no, F., . Palgrave MacMillan. 139- 161. 978-3-030-45938-3

Fumagalli, M., (2020). . In: Border Transgression and Reconfiguration of Caribbean Spaces. Editors: Moise, M. and Reno, F., . Palgrave McMillan. 139- 163. 978-3-030-45938-3

Fumagalli, M., (2018). La masacre de 1937: aduenarse de un recuerdo tal y como relumbra en el istante de un peligro. In: Masacre de 1937: 80 anos despues - Reconstruyendo la memoria. Editors: Bosch, M., . Fundacion Bosch, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. 273- 295

Fumagalli, MC., (2016). . In: Tracking the Literature of Tropical Weather: Typhoons, Cyclones, and Hurricanes. Editors: Collett, A., McDougall, R. and Thomas, S., . Palgrave Macmillan. 177- 198. 978-3-319-41515-4

Fumagalli, MC., (2016). 'Derek Walcott'. In: Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography. Editors: Gates, HL. and Knight, FW., . Oxford University Press. 314- 319

Fumagalli, MC., (2015). . In: Il valore della letteratura. Scritture in onore di Luigi Sampietro. Editions Mimesis. 95- 104. 9788857530109

Fumagalli, MC., Hulme, P., Robinson, O. and Wylie, L., (2013). . In: Surveying the American Tropics: A Literary Geography from New York to Rio. Editors: Fumagalli, MC., Hulme, P., Robinson, O. and Wylie, L., . Liverpool University Press. 1- 20. 9781846318900

Fumagalli, MC., Ledent, B. and Del Valle Alcala, R., (2013). Introduction. In: The Cross-Dressed Caribbean: Writing, Politics, Sexualities. University of Virginia Press. 1- 21. 9783319325842

Fumagalli, MC., (2008). . In: The Caribbean Writer as Warrior of the Imaginary/L'Ecrivain carib茅en, guerrier de l'imaginaire. Brill/Rodopi. 397- 409. 9789042025530

Fumagalli, MC., (2006). Maryse Cond茅 Creolizes the Canon in La Migration des c艙urs. In: Emerging Perspectives on Maryse Cond茅: A Writer of Her Own. Africa World Press. 253- 274. 9781592212224

Fumagalli, MC., (2006). 'Writing that Conquers vs Breasts Swingers: From Jan Van der Straet to Grace Nichols'. In: Swinging My Breasts at History: Caribbean Women Writing. Editors: Inghilleri, M., . Mango Publishing. 94- 104

Fumagalli, MC., (2004). Bridges across Chasms: Derek Walcott's The Bounty and Creolization. In: Bridges across Chasms: Towards a Transcultural Future in Caribbean Literature. Li猫ge Language and Literature, English Department, Universit茅 de Li猫ge. 303- 311. 9782872330263

Fumagalli, MC., (2002). Remembering the Contemporary: Lady Mary Wroth and Erna Brodber. In: Centre of Remembrance: Memory and Caribbean Women's Literature. Mango Publishing Group. 81- 94. 9781902294025

Fumagalli, MC., (2002). Derek Walcott's Epitaph for the Young: A Poem in XII Cantos: Modernist Texts and the Caribbean Experience. In: Intertextuality and Modernism in Comparative Literature. Philomel. 271- 289. 9781898685425

Fumagalli, MC., (1993). Eterno tormento spirituale e impossibilit脿 del ritorno a casa: Le storie di Huckleberry Finn, Holden Caulfield, Dean Moriarty e la leggenda dell'ebreo errante. In: L'Ebreo errante: Metamorfosi di un mito. Cisalpino. 301- 313. 9788820507459

Grants and funding

2025

Towards More Inclusive Citizenship: A Cultural Approach

糖心Vlog (QR Impact Fund)

2023

Painting the Caribbean (1850-1904)

Leverhulme Trust

2018

On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic

糖心Vlog

2017

The Haitian-Dominican Border: Past and Present

糖心Vlog

2016

Festival 4 Chemins, Port-au-Prince

糖心Vlog

2015

Derek Walcott's Painters

Leverhulme Trust

Derek Walcott's Painters

Leverhulme Trust

2012

On the Edge: The Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Leverhulme Trust

2011

An Island Divided and an Island Shared: Haiti and the Dominican

JISLAC

Contact

mcfuma@essex.ac.uk
+44 (0) 1206 872610

Location:

5NW.4.13, Colchester Campus

More about me
On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic:
Caribbean Perspectives on Modernity: Returning Medusa's Gaze:
The Flight of the Vernacular:
The Cross-Dressed Caribbean: Writing, Politics, Sexualities:
Surveying the American Tropics: A Literary Geography from New York to Rio:
Special Issue on Hispaniola After the Earthquake,BLAR (Bulletin of Latin American Research):
Agenda - Special Issue on Walcott:
Maria Cristina Fumagalli discussing On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic with Alejandra Bronfman for New Books in Caribbean Studies:
On Walcott and Doig:
Pantomime - Derek Walcott:
O Starry Starry Night - Derek Walcott:
80th Anniversary of 1937 massacre:
鈥楽tranger than Fiction: Opportunities for a New Narrative in Dominico-Haitian relations under Covid-19鈥, Human Rights Centre Blog, 糖心Vlog, 8 July 2020:
鈥楨agle View: Karmadavis Performing Borders - An Interview with Maria Cristina Fumagalli and Bridget Wooding / Vista de águila: Karmadavis: fronteras y performance 鈥 Una entrevista con Maria Cristina Fumagalli y Bridget Wooding鈥,:
鈥楬ow a Broken Migration Policy Has Divided Haiti and the Dominican Republic鈥, interviewed by World Politics Review, March 2018:
鈥楥onozcamos a Maria Cristina Fumagalli鈥 OBMICA Bulletin 8.2 (June 2018) p. 6.:
La Frontera Dominico-Haitiana: Pasado y Presente:
La Española Necesita Nuevas Narrativas (with Bridget Wooding):
Hispaniola needs new narratives: