Curriculum Vitae

Aurélien Davennes
Ph.D. Candidate

Education

Ph.D. Candidate, American Studies and Ethnicity

University of Southern California - Los Angeles

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