Keisha S. Allan

Keisha Allan is an assistant professor in the Department of Black & Latinx Studies at Baruch College. Her research focuses on twentieth-century Caribbean literature. Within this field, she examines Caribbean literature by women writers who critique social and political inequities in their societies. She examines how selected female authors from the Caribbean create fictional worlds that have the effect of subverting patriarchal perspectives and paradigms in their postcolonial societies. She interrogates society and artistic responsibility, with women presented as creatively engaged in revolutionary activities aimed at reshaping ideas and perspectives in the national imaginary. She has published sections of her research in peer-reviewed journals such as The Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy and The Fight & The Fiddle of the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University. Her current research project examines how Caribbean women writers propose alternative conceptions of marronage by foregrounding the freedom making tactics of women in post-colonial societies shaped variously by French, Spanish and British colonialism.

As an advocate for community building, Dr. Allan has worked with community organizations founded by Anglophone Caribbean people who work with Caribbean and Central American students to expand knowledge by considering how issues of diversity and inclusion are discussed in the Washington Metropolitan Area and in various parts of the Caribbean and Latin America. In coordination with local community organizations, she has created avenues for productive global outreach to Caribbean and Latin American communities.