Hello there! I am a first-year doctoral student in the English department at the CUNY Graduate Center. My areas of interest are nineteenth-century literature in general and African American slave novels with a focus on motherhood, children and adoption. Furthermore, I want to explore how some of these maternal constructions persist in various ways in present day America. I did my undergrad (with honors) at NYU in Social Sciences and my MA (with honors) in English at the College of Staten Island. I wrote my MA thesis on a particularly interesting construction in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, wherein the adoption by White women of enslaved children is suggested as a viable means to a way out of slavery. Stowe’s novel is well rejoined by Black female authors through their own novels and poetry and there is still present-day discourse around this. At the GC I want to pursue studies in nineteenth-century literature, feminist studies and adoption literature. I registered for this class in research methods because I have not worked with archives before and I’m sure this class will support my research of nineteenth-century literature as I trace the cultural origins and historical contexts of literary works by both African American and European authors of the time. I am looking forward to studying under Professor Reynolds, whose writings about Harriet Beecher Stowe, and other nineteenth-century literary works, I admire.