Matthew Joseph Pettway

Education

• 2010:  Ph.D. in Hispanic Cultural Studies at Michigan State University.
• 2001:  M.A. Michigan State University: Spanish and Latin American Literatures. 
• 1999:  B.A. Eastern Michigan University: Business Spanish and Media Production.

Languages

• English: Native Fluency
• Spanish: Near-Native Fleuncy
• Portuguese: Fluency

Research Interests

• African-Cuban Studies
• Afro-Caribbean Spirituality in Literature
• Black Cuban Colonial Narrative and Poetry
• Critical Race Studies
• Black Male Studies in Brazil
• Afro-Brazilian manhood, sexuality, and kinship in Brazil

Publications

Published Work

• “Ritual and Reason: Negotiating Freedom in the Literature Juan Francisco Manzano”  (Published in peer-reviewed journal, PALARA Fall 2012)
• “Black Femininity and the Silence of Domestic Space in "The Cemetery on the Sugar Plantation’ by José del Carmen Díaz” (Published in peer-reviewed journal, Zora Neale Hurston Forum, Fall 2013, Solicited article)
• “Manzano en el monte: Recuperando el sujeto perdido en 
  ‘Un sueño. A mi segundo hermano’” (Published in Cuban journal, Del Caribe, Spring 2013)
• “Sacred Ways of Meaning and Knowing: A Comparative Reading   
  of Caribbean Literature” (Review essay published in the peer-reviewed American Studies Journal, Spring 2015)

• “Páginas salvadas de la historia de Santiago de Cuba” (Published in Cuban journal, Del Caribe, Summer 2015)

• “The Altar, The Oath, and the Body of Christ: Ritual Poetics and Cuban Racial Politics of 1844” (Published in Black Writing, Culture and the State in Latin America, October 2015)

• Dictionary entries on Juan Francisco Manzano, Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés, Ambrosio Echemendía, José del Carmen Díaz
  The Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography. Oxford University Press. (Published in May 2016, Commissioned pieces)
  

• “Braggarts, Charlatans, and Curros: Black Cuban Masculinity and Humor in the Poetry of Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés”
  (Published in April 2019 with Louisiana State University Press as part of a peer-reviewed critical anthology, Breaking the Chains: Making the Nation, The Black Cuban Fight for Freedom and Equality, 1812 to 1912, Solicited piece)
  

• “Literatura Cubana na Era da Insurreição Negra: Manzano, Plácido e Religião Afro-Latina” (Portuguese translation of my Keynote Address for the XVI Interdisciplinary Conference of Literary Studies) at the Universidade Federal do Ceará in Fortaleza, Brazil) (Translated by Ricelly Bezerra and Kamila Moreira de Oliveira) Entrelaces, Revista do Programa de Pós-graduação em Letras UFC (Published in 2021)

• “El que no tiene de congo tiene de cubano: Diálogo imaginario entre el rey del Congo y un poeta negro cubano” (Published in August 2022 in the Afro-Hispanic Review, a peer-reviewed journal)

• Book Review of New Perspectives on Hispanic Caribbean Studies edited by Magdalena López and María Teresa Vera-Rojas in New West Indian Guide (Published in 2022)

• “Una entrevista etnográfica con el profesor Tomas Fernández Robaina sobre la diversidad sexual” (Published in August 2024 in Cuban Studies, a peer-reviewed journal)  

Work in Progress

• "An African in Exile: Third-Gender Identity, Sex, and Kinship in Medieval Portugal"

Forthcoming Publications

• “Mars is Oggún: African-Cuban Spirituality and the Divine Masculine in the Poetry of Plácido” (Forthcoming in 2025 in the peer-reviewed anthology, Cambridge Latinx Literatures in Transition: 1444- 1886; solicited essay)

• “In Search of My Brother: Afro-Caribbean Spirituality and Freedom in  
  Juan Francisco Manzano’s ‘A Dream: For My Second Brother’”  
  (English Translation of a Previously-Published Article,  
  in Art is Religion is Art, a peer-reviewed critical anthology on world religions, solicited piece) 

Under Review

• “Reading through the Invisibility of Race and Gender:   
  The Destruction of Black Manhood in One Hundred Years of Solitude”  
  (Under Review with Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos)
• “Construindo uma ética africana contra a violência homoerótica no Brasil colonial” (Under review with Revista Anuário de Literatura)  

Future Book Project

• The ethics of African manhood, sexuality, and kinship in eighteenth century Brazil

Teaching

• Fall 2016-Spring 2018: Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs and Visiting Professor in Hispanic Studies, College of Charleston: Latin American and Caribbean Studies classes and Spanish language courses.

• Fall 2014-May 2016: Assistant Professor of Spanish, Bates College: Intermediate Spanish language and composition courses and advanced Spanish language courses that introduce literary writing.  Furthermore, I taught a course on Catholicism, African-based Spirituality and Race in the Twentieth-Century Spanish Caribbean Narrative.

• Fall 2013: Langston Hughes Visiting Professorship, University of Kansas: By special invitation, I taught a graduate seminar on Africans and their descendants in Cuban literature and an undergraduate course on racial discrimination, sexuality and Hip Hop in post-Soviet Cuba.

• Fall 2012-Winter 2013: Assistant Professor of Spanish, Bates College: I taught intermediate Spanish language and composition courses and advanced Spanish language courses that introduce literary writing. Furthermore, I taught a multi-genre survey of Spanish American Literature and a course on Catholicism, Africa-based Spirituality and Race in the Twentieth-Century Caribbean Narrative.

• Summer 2012: Assistant Professor of Spanish, Bates College: Team-taught course on Introduction to Contemporary Cuban Culture with anthropologist, Professor Val Carnegie.  The innovative course examined, gender and sexuality, racial discrimination and musical politics in Cuba after the Special Period.  Organized in two modules, the course meet for two weeks of intensive on campus study and two weeks of participant-observation and additional class sessions with Cuban scholars and cultural experts in country.  

• Fall 2011-Winter 2012: Assistant Professor of Spanish, Bates College: I taught advanced Spanish language courses that introduce literary writing, a multi-genre survey of Spanish American Literature and a junior/senior seminar on blacks in Cuban literary history.

• Fall 2010-Winter 2011: Assistant Professor of Spanish, Bates College: I taught intermediate Spanish language, literature and composition courses and a multi-genre survey of Spanish American Writing.  In winter semester 2011, I taught a course on Catholicism, Africa-based Spirituality and Race in the Twentieth-Century Caribbean Narrative.  In fall semester 2011, I taught survey of Spanish American Literature and an advanced Spanish language course. 

• Spring 2009-Fall 2010: Visiting Instructor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Michigan State University. Courses taught: an intermediate Spanish 201 course and an advanced Spanish composition course.

• Fall 2008: Instructor, Integrative Arts and Humanities Program, Michigan State University. Course on Afro-Hispanic Caribbean Literature, postcolonialism and cultural studies.

• Spring 2008: Teaching Assistant, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Michigan State University. Courses taught: an accelerated intermediate Spanish 250 course.

• Fall 2007: Teaching Assistant, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Michigan State University. Courses taught: two beginning Spanish 100 Level courses.

• 2004-2007: Teaching Assistant, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Michigan State University. Courses taught: intermediate Spanish 201, 202 and an accelerated intermediate Spanish 250 course.   

• 2003-2004: Teaching Assistant, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Michigan State University. Courses taught: beginning Spanish 100 Level courses.   

• Summer 2001: Adjunct Spanish Instructor, Department of Foreign Languages, Lansing Community College. Course taught: a beginning Spanish 100 Level.

• 1999-2001: Teaching Assistant, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Michigan State University. Courses taught: Spanish 100 Level courses.