Office Location:
Bio:
Roberto Strongman is Associate Professor in the Department of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his Ph.D. in Literature from the University of California, San Diego in 2003. Dr. Strongman's interdisciplinary approach encompasses the fields of Religion, History, and Sexuality in order to further his main area of research and teaching: Comparative Caribbean Cultural Studies. Dr. Strongman's trans-national and multi-lingual approach to the Caribbean cultural zone is grounded in La Créolité, a movement developed at L'Université des Antilles et de La Guyane in Martinique, where he studied as a dissertation fellow. In addition to his research in Martinique, Dr. Strongman has conducted archival research in Aruba, Colombia and Haiti in connection to his ongoing interest in the literatures of Creole languages. His articles have appeared in Journal of Haitian Studies, Journal of Caribbean Studies, Journal of Caribbean Literatures, Callaloo, Kunapipi, Wadabagei, and the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies. Dr. Strongman’s first book Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Transcorporeality in Candomblé, Santería and Vodou (Duke 2019) is a Lambda Literary LGBTQ Studies Award finalist. He is currently working on a second book project on Afroamerican religion on the Caribbean coast of Panama.
Publications:
Books
Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Transcorporeality in Camdomblé, Santería, and Vodou
Duke University Press, 2019
Read the Introduction
Reviews
Reviewed by Solimar Otero
Journal of Folklore Research: An International Journal of Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020
Reviewed by Juan F. Caraballo-Resto
Caribbean Studies. Vol. 47, No. 2, July - December 2019, pp. 160-163
Podcasts
Race and Blackness
March, 2020
Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Transcorporeality in Candomblé, Santería, and Vodou
February, 2020
Publications
(Click on titles to view articles. Some are in PDF format.)
Mediterranean Manifesto
Journal of Mediterranean Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2015
On the Non-Equivalence of Black and Negro
Slavery as a Global and Regional Phenomenon, 2015
The Body of Vodou
The Cross-Dressed Carribean, 2013
An Interview with Robert H. McCormick, Jr.
Journal of Haitian Studies, Vol. 18, No. 2, Fall 2012
Détour d’Haïti: A Prologue
Journal of Haitian Studies, Vol. 18, No. 2, Fall 2012
The Body of Vodou: Corporeality and the Location of Gender Afro-Diasporic Religion
Literary Expressions of African Spirituality, 2013
Um Pintor Cubano e os Orixás
Povo de Santo e Asè, Dezembro 2011
O Candomblé de "Dona Flor e os Seus Dois Maridos (Parte 2)
Povo de Santo e Asè, Setembro 2011
O Candomblé de "Dona Flor e os Seus Dois Maridos (Parte 1)
Povo de Santo e Asè, Junho 2011
The Afro-Diasporic Body in Haitian Vodou and the Transcending of Gendered Cartesian Corporeality
KUNAPIPI, Journal of Postcolonial Writing & Culture, Vol. XXX, No. 2, 2008
Transcorporeality in Vodou
Journal of Haitian Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, Fall 2008
A Caribbean Response to the Question of Third World National Allegories: Jameson, Ahmad and the Return of the Repressed
Anthurium, A Caribbean Studies Journal, Vol. 6, Issue 2, Fall 2008
Sizing up the Queer Black Thug Lover: The Down Low as Counter Discourse to Homonormativity
Screening Noir, Journal of Black Film, Television & New Media Culture, Vol. 1, No. 2, Spring/Summer 2008
On the Question of Caribbean National Allegories
Essay, Sargasso, 2007-08
Postmodern Developments in Michelle Cliff's No Telephone to Heaven and Esmeralda Sandiago's When I was Puerto Rican
Journal of Caribbean Studies, Vol. 21, No. 3, Fall 2007
The Colonial State Apparatus of the School: Development, Education, and Mimicry in Patrick Chamoiseau's Une Enfance Créole II: Chemin-d'École and V.S. Naipaul's Miguel Street
Journal of West Indian Literature, Vol. 16, No. 1, November 2007
The Latin American Queer Aesthetics of El Bolereo
Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Vol. 32, No. 64, 2007
Postmodern Developments in Michelle Cliff's No Telephone to Heaven and Esmeralda Santiago's When I was Puerto Rican
Journal of Caribbean Literatures, Vol. 4, No. 3, Spring 2007
Reading through the Bloody Borderlands of Hispaniola: Fictionalizing the 1937 Massacre of Haitian Sugarcane Workers in the Dominican Republic
Journal of Haitian Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2, Fall 2006
Gay Human Rights in Cuba: Exile, Hegemony and Liberation in Reinaldo Arenas's La Vieja Rosa and Arturo, La Estrella Más Brillante
Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3, 2006
Beating the Bastard: Discourses of Domestic and Educational Violence in Autobiographical Novels of Mid-Twentieth-Century Caribbean Decolonization
Wadabagei: A Journal of the Caribbean and its Diasporas, Vol. 9, No. 2, Spring/Summer 2006
Development and Same-Sex Desire in Caribbean Allegorical Autobiography: Shani Mootoo's Cereus Blooms at Night,and Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John and Lucy
Kunapipi: Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Vol. XXVII, No. 1, 2005
Caribbean New York: Paule Marshall's Brown Girl, Brownstones and Piri Thomas's Down These Mean Streets
Journal of Caribbean Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 & 2, Fall 2004-2005
Women Writing Creole: Deyita's Esperans Dezire, Sistren's Lionheart Gal, and Mamita Fox's Identifikashon
Journal of Haitian Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2, Fall 2003
Syncretic Religion and Dissident Sexualities
Queer Globalizations: Citizenship and the Afterlife of Colonialism, 2002
Book Reviews
Autofiction and Advocacy in the Francophone Caribbean, By Renee Larrier
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006
Reviewed by Roberto Strongman
New West Indian Guide (NWIG), Vol. 82, No. 3 & 4, 2008
Where Men are Wives and Mothers Rule: Santería Ritual Practices and Their Gender Implications, By Mary A. Clark
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005, ISBN 0-8130-2834-5
Reviewed by Roberto Strongman
Caribbean Studies, Vol. 35, No. 1, January - June 2007
The Tears of Hispaniola, By Lucía Suárez
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006, ISBN 0-8130-2926-0
Reviewed by Roberto Strongman
Journal of Haitian Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, Spring 2006
The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature: volumes 1 & 2
F. Abiola and Simon Gikandi, eds.
Cambridge University Press, 2004, ISBN 0521594340
Reviewed by Roberto Strongman
Journal of Haitian Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, Spring 2006
French Atlantic Review
"The French Atlantic Triangle: Acute or Obtuse?" Journal of Postcolonial Studies. Karina Smith, ed.
Feasting on Words: Maryse Condé, Cannibalism, and the Caribbean Text (PLAS Cuadernos Series no. 8), Eds. Broichhagen, Vera, Lachman, Kathryn, and Simek, Nicole; Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Program in Latin American Studies, 2006
Reviewed by Roberto Strongman
Callaloo, Vol. 30, No. 3
Creative Dossier
El Fetiche Epistolario
Narrativas: revista de narrativa contemporánea en castellano. Vol. 20, Marzo, 2011. Madrid.
¿De qué estábamos hablando antes? (reprint)
GIBRALFARO. Revista de Creación Literaria y Humanidades. Publicación Bimestral de Cultura. Año IX. II Época. Número 67. Mayo-Junio-Julio 2010.
¿De qué estábamos hablando antes?
Narrativas: revista de narrativa contemporánea en castellano. Vol. 19, Octubre, 2010. Madrid.
Powèm pa Roberto Strongman "Rèv Latousen"
TANBOU / TAMBOUR, Winter 2008
The Snake Tree
All Soul's Daydream
Poetry, Calabash, A Journal of Caribbean Arts and Letters, Vol. 5, No. 1: Summer/Fall 2008
La manda de Názaro
Narrativas, revista de narrativa contemporánea en castellano, Número 09, Abril-Junio 2008
Los Veinte Dólares
Gibralfaro, Aula de Narrativa Breve, No. 52, Noviembre-Diciembre, 2007
In the News
Oprah Magazine
By Michelle Hart, Oprah Magazine
March 10, 2020
Un colonese, entre las religiones afroamericanas y la crítica de la heteronormatividad
By Luis Pulido Ritter, La Estrella de Panamá
March 8, 2020
Freed by the Spirits
By Jim Logan, The Current
October 29, 2019
From the Margins to the Center
By Andrea Estrada, The Current
May 14, 2014
Benin Voodoo Festival Ends
By Katharine Houreld, Associated Press Writer
January 11, 2007
Posters from Selected Talks
Transcorporeality in Black Atlantic Religions
February, 2020
Humanities Decanted
January, 2020
Carribean Meditations on Love, Sexuality, and Spirituality: A Symposium
November, 2019
Book Launch Events in the New York Metropolitan Area
October - November, 2019