Erika Serrato
Education
Ph.D., French, Emory University, 2017BA, French, University of Oklahoma, 2008BA, Linguistics, University of Oklahoma, 2008
About Professor Serrato
Dr. Serrato specializes in literary and cultural production in the French-speaking Caribbean, particularly as it relates to questions of indigeneity. In particular, her work traces racial interrelations since the so-called discovery of the Americas, namely how Afro-Creolized communities interact with and incorporate Amerindian legacies and cultural artifacts as acts of resistance, survival, and to arrive at a new definition of a native Caribbean.
Her research and teaching also extend to other parts of the French-speaking world (Québec, French Polynesia), and include questions of language, memory, ecocriticism, the poetics of subversion, as well as revolutionary thought and self-sovereignty.
Prior to accepting her position at UNC, Dr. Serrato was an Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Teaching Fellow at Morehouse College.
She is a co-founding member of the Caribbean collective Kwazman vwa.
She is currently working on a book manuscript regarding indigeneity in the French-speaking Caribbean.
Publications, Articles, & Presentations
“Writing Amerindian Ayiti: Edwidge Danticat’s Reclaimed Memory and Shifting Homes.” Narrating History, Home, and Dyaspora: Critical Essays on Edwidge Danticat, Ed. Maia Butler et al. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2022. 71-84.
“Haiti: Jesús Cos Causse’s Prelude to the Caribbean.” Racialized Visions: Haiti and the Hispanic Caribbean, Ed. Vanessa Valdés. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2020. 135-158.
"Mycéa : délire verbal et mémoire empierrée chez Édouard Glissant." Women in French Studies 25 (2017): 41-57.
"Lamentos haitianos: Jacques Roumain, Haiti, and the familiar in Jesús Cos Causse's poetry." SX Salon: A Small Axe literary platform 22(2016)
Awards & Honors
Carolina Postdoctoral Fellowship for Faculty Diversity, UNC Chapel Hill (2017-2019)
Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Teaching Fellowship, Morehouse College (2016-2017)
Anne Amari Perry Award : Department of French and Italian, Emory University (2016)
Typical Courses
FREN 576 Mémoire et désastre aux Antilles
FREN 575 Native Caribbean
FREN 390 Enfance et fable antillaises
FREN 375 L'écriture aux temps de crise
FREN 354 Francophone Poetry & Slam
FREN 288 Francophone Caribbean Literature in Translation