Ms. Merinda Simmons
Instructor

African American Literature and Religion, Southern Studies, Gender Theories

Email: simmo045@as.ua.edu
Office Phone: 348-9911
Office: Manly 204

To view a copy of Merinda's CV, click here

Learn more about the 2006 conference on the African Diaspora at which Ms. Simmons was a participant.

Learn more about the conference in Copenhagen where Ms. Simmons presented her research on Nella Larson's novel Quicksand.

Ms. Simmons gave a lecture, "Slain in the Spirit: Sexuality and Afro-Caribbean Religious Expression in Nella Larsen's Quicksand" here on April 26, 2006 for the "Religion in Culture" series.

Ms. Simmons chapter on Nella Larsen's novel Quicksand appears in a recently published book. Click the cover to
learn more.

Merinda Simmons is a doctoral student in the Department of English at the University of Alabama currently completing her dissertation. She has been hired for the 2008-9 academic year to teach in REL.

Research Interests

Her areas of interest include the relationship between religious expression and gender identity, Afro-Caribbean and African American Women Writers, Southern Studies, and Feminist Theory and Philosophy.

Her current research examines Afro-Caribbean and African American women's migration narratives in the 19th and 20th centuries, giving specific focus to how travel across geographical and sociopolitical boundaries constructs notions of "gender" and "labor." In some of her recent work, for example, she discusses the "work" of religious performativity-conjure and witchcraft specifically-in such novels as Mama Day and I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem. These examples, especially when stacked against notions of "benevolent labor," she suggests, reveal a complicated relationship between gender identity and material economy.

Current Projects

She is also currently working with Professor Phil Beidler of the English department at UA to organize a symposium on "Race and Displacement" slated for Fall '09. This conference will focus on the concept of racial diaspora-removals, resettlements, migrations, colonial and post-colonial geographies, both individual and collective.

Following the symposium proceedings, Simmons and Beidler plan to edit a volume for Palgrave MacMillan's Signs of Race series that would include article-length versions of the essays presented.

Teaching

In the Fall 2008 semester Ms. Simmons teaches REL 100 and REL 105. In the Spring 2009 semester Ms. Simmons will also teach a course on women and religion that draws upon her expertise on literary studies.

Previous courses taught include early American literature (colonial-1865, EN 209), honors composition courses on themes like "Music and Culture" and "Place and Identity" (EN 103), modern American literature (1865-present, EN 210), 20th Century Literature in English (EN 227), and EN 101 and 102, both on their own and as part of the Harris/Parker-Adams Living/Learning Community.