Ph.D. Candidate, American Studies and Ethnicity
University of Southern California - Los Angeles
Curriculum Vitae
Aurélien Davennes
Ph.D. Candidate
Education
M.A., American Studies and Ethnicity
University of Southern California - Los Angeles
M.A., Anthropology & Sociology (with highest honors)
EHESS (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) - Paris
M.A., Public Affairs
Sciences Po. (Institute of Political Studies) - Paris
B.A., Philosophy, Politics, and Law
Sciences Po. (Institute of Political Studies) - Paris
Theoretical Specializations
- Cultural Anthropology
- Caribbean Studies
- Postcolonial America
- Ethnography
- Sexuality & Insularity
- The African Diaspora
- Haitian Vodou
- Sorcery & Magic
- Haitian Studies
- Black Studies
Publications
“The Opacity of Desire. Queerness, Postcolonialism, And Diasporic Belonging in Guadeloupe”
Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures, 16(1), 160–181. 10.21463/shima.156
-Abstract-
This article addresses the seemingly invisibility of queerness in the Caribbean context, which is often believed to result from a deeply homophobic and bigoted insular milieu. This invisibility has less to do with self-loathing, shame, and hiding than with a voluntary gesture toward ambiguity, subtleness, and alteration. I demonstrate that queerness in Guadeloupe is generally not conceived as a sexual and political identity that should be loudly and proudly reclaimed, but rather as both a practice and an effect of an uncertain and impure reading that I call the peu-dit (little is said) or ‘PD’. This ‘little said’ opens up meaning more than it forecloses it as it traces an affective and alternative cartography that irremediably correlates racial and queer formation with continent and island-making. This ethnography is both an inspiration and a call to decontinentalise our standpoint, and to orient ourselves towards an archipelagic and counter-imperial queer thinking.
“Everywhere and Nowhere: Intersectionality and the LGBTQ Movement”
Fellowships & Awards
USC Graduate School Summer Research and Writing Grant
University of Southern California - $2000
USC American Studies and Ethnicity, Summer Grant
University of Southern California - $2500
USC American Studies and Ethnicity, Graduate Student Travel Award
University of Southern California - $2000
“Best Paper and Presentation” CLCS Graduate Student Conference
University of New Mexico
USC American Studies and Ethnicity, Graduate Student Travel Award
University of Southern California - $2500
Dornsife / Graduate School Ph.D. Fellowship in the Humanities
University of Southern California
Teaching Experience
AMST 252: Black Social Movements in the U.S. (TA)
AMST 250: The African Diaspora (TA)
Professor Oneka LaBennett
AMST 200: The African Diaspora (TA)
African American, Africana, and Black Studies, History, Anthropology
AMST 101: Race and Class in Los Angeles (TA)
African American, Asian, Chicano/a & Indigenous Studies, History
AMST 200: Introduction to American Studies & Ethnicity (TA)
African-American, Asian, Chicano/a & Indigenous Studies, History
AMST 135: People and Culture of the Americas (TA)
Latinx, Caribbean & Indigenous Studies, Anthropology
Conference & Presentations
Conference Presentation
“The Opacity of Desire: Queerness & Postcolonialism in Guadeloupe"
University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
“A Transatlantic Poetics of Same-Sex Desire”
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
“The Poetics of Same-Sex Desire in the Francophone Caribbean”
University of Santa Marta, Colombia
“An Interlope Desire: LGBTQ Migration between the Antilles and France”
San Diego State University
“Between the Antilles and France: Desire, Liminality, Sexuality”
University of New Mexico
“Infernal Paradise: Queer Intimacy between the Antilles and France”
University of Southern California
“Territories of Same-Sex Desire”
Chicago, United States
“I movimenti LGBTS in Francia e la questione dell’intersezionalità”
University of Verona
Conference Organization
Sciences Po’s Queer Week
Sciences Po, Paris
Invited Talks
“HIV-Positive Women: Rethinking HIV Prevention Policies through the Prism of Gender, Race, and Sexuality”
Paris, France
“The LGBT Movement and the Migratory Crisis: What are the Stakes, What are the Responsibilities?”
Paris, France
“LGBT Persons of Color and Arabs: How to Manage Plurality”
Paris, France
Responsabilities & University Service
Graduate Student Representative
Department of American Studies & Ethnicity
- Role of liaison between the graduate students and the faculty members
- Identification of good practices among the department and suggestion of improvements (T.A. training, admission process, conferences, etc.)
- Organization of three meetings between the faculty members and the graduate students (known as Town Hall)
Graduate Student Organizer for the Africana Research Cluster (ARC)
Department of American Studies & Ethnicity
Organization of monthly meetings with graduate students from different departments interested in discussing their research on the African Diaspora and Africana Studies.
Vice-President
Graduate Scholars of Migration & Postcolonial Studies (MAPS)
Organization of weekly meetings with graduate students interested in discussing their research and interest in Migration Studies, Diaspora Studies, and Postcolonial Studies.
Employment
Research Assistant
Dr. Lydie Moudileno - USC Department of Comparative Studies in Literature & Culture
Research Assistant
Dr. Rebecca Corbett - USC East Asian and Japanese Studies Library
Research Project Manager
TMI (Research Foundation in Social Sciences) - Paris
Research Manager
French Parliament - Paris
Press and Communication Assistant
Consulate General of France - San Francisco
Community Involvement
G.A.R.Ç.E.S, feminist & LGBTQ Collective
For three years, I organized various meetings, performances, debates and workshops on varied issues (sexual consent, gender and body norms, sexual education, sexual violence, women’s, immigrants’, and LGBTQ people’s rights, etc.)
Participation to the documentary: “Campus Rapes: How to Break the Silence?”
This documentary offers a comparison between American and French mobilizations against rapes on campus. A discussion group I created, which brings together students directly concerned by sexual violence, was featured to show the situation in France (60-minute documentary)
Tjenbé Rèd - Afro-Caribbean action group against LGBTQ phobia
Volunteering (participation in HIV / AIDS prevention, organization of con- ferences about racism and homophobia)
Professional Affiliations
- American Anthropological Association (AAA)
- American Studies Association (ASA)
- Caribbean Studies Association (CSA)
- Haitian Studies Association (HSA)
Languages
- French: native
- English: fluent
- Italian: good
- Spanish: basic
- Haitian Creole: fluent