(Jun. 6, 2017) Presenting on Hamilton at the Caribbean Studies Association Conference

At the 2017 Caribbean Studies Association conference held in the Bahamas, Elena Machado Sáez chaired a panel on “Absent Presence: Silenced Histories in Caribbean Writing and Art.” She presented on “Blackout on Broadway: Affiliation and Audience in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton.” Her fellow panelists included Jocelyn Stitt from the University of Michigan who presented on “Raw Materials? Absence and Caribbean Knowledge” and Sobeira Latorre from Southern Connecticut State University who presented on “Blackness, Taínos, and Historical Recovery in Dominican Literature in the US.”

(Apr. 20, 2017) American Literary History Review of Market Aesthetics

The journal American Literary History has published a review of Market Aesthetics.

Phillips Casteel finds that “Machado Sáez’s comparative analysis of diasporic Caribbean literary production has the advantage of foregrounding commonalities among second-generation writers who emerged in an era of multiculturalism in various regions of the Global North.” Additionally, she argues that “Machado Sáez strikingly demonstrates that the novels introduce author- and reader-doubles in order to stage the challenges of reception and communication between author and reader.”

Check out the rest of the review here.

(June 8, 2016) Author Celebration at Caribbean Studies Association Conference in Haiti

I had the pleasure of having Market Aesthetics: The Purchase of the Past in Caribbean Diasporic Fiction (University of Virginia Press 2015) launched at the Caribbean Studies Association conference in Haiti in June 2016. Carol Bailey of Westfield State University graciously agreed to introduce the book, providing an overview of its arguments and (thankfully) some its merits.

I’m grateful to the organizers of the Author Celebration panel, Kamille Gentles-Peart, Karen Flynn, and Sheri K. Lewis, for their hard work, generous spirit, and joyful celebration of Caribbean Studies scholarship.

The Author Celebration panel also included presentations on Yarimar Bonilla’s Non-Sovereign Futures: French Caribbean Politics in the Wake of Disenchantment, Angelique Nixon’s Resisting Paradise: Tourism, Diaspora, and Sexuality in Caribbean Culture, and Andrea Queeley’s Rescuing Our Roots: The African Anglo-Caribbean Diaspora in Contemporary Cuba.

(May 22, 2016) Callaloo Review of Market Aesthetics

front_coverThe journal Callaloo has just published a review of Market Aesthetics in their Winter 2016 issue.

In the Callaloo review, Sofia Tirado asserts that Machado Sáez’s “work offers an innovative contribution to the study of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Caribbean diasporic literature. Her study presents both a fresh perspective on canonical texts and an analysis of texts not widely discussed” (229).

Check out the rest of the review here.