John Maddox

John Maddox. Associate Professor of Spanish
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University Hall 3116
(205) 975-5329

Research and Teaching Interests: Afro-Hispanic Literature and Culture, the Caribbean, US-Brazil-Hispanic Comparisons, Ways of Understanding the Body (Medicine, Gender, Race)

Office Hours: By appointment

Education:
  • PhD, Vanderbilt Combined PhD in Spanish and Portuguese

I am from Georgia, but great teachers inspired me to study Spanish so I could be like them. This led me to travel the world: Europe, Mexico, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Cambodia. I taught high school Spanish for five years. Studying the African Diaspora has given unity to my varied interests and gives me a sense of pride in discovering often under-appreciated writers, artists, and approaches.

I try to make my classes a place where students get to hear many voices, including their own. Students talk to international conversation partners via Skype and Zoom in my classes. I have multiple guest speakers each semester. I led a 2016 May mini-term trip to Puerto Rico to do community service and learn about local culture, and I chaperoned a May mini-term trip to Spain in medicine, language, and culture. My Medicine and Literature course uses a student-centered approach to study Latin American history and culture through these two disciplines. I have taught our first courses on Brazil and the Portuguese language. I am faculty sponsor of the Palomitas Spanish and Latin American Film Club and the Omicron Mu Chapter of the Sigma Delta Pi Spanish Honor Society. I am passionate about contemporary Latin American literature and culture, and I enjoy sharing them with my students.

+ - Recent Courses Click to collapse
  • Portuguese 101
  • Spanish 399: Special Topics: Medicine and Literature
  • Spanish 412: US Latino Writers
  • Spanish 414: African Hispaniphone Writers: Survey of the Afro-Hispanic World
  • FLL 485: Foreign Language Capstone: Brazil, the Other Half of South America
+ - Select Publications Click to collapse
  • In press: Fractal Families in New Millennium Narrative by Afro-Puerto Rican Women. University of Wales Press, February 2023.
  • In press: “La diáspora africana y la conciencia doble según Paul Gilroy y Manuel Zapata Olivella”. Revista Iberoamericana 280 (2022). Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, Pittsburgh.
  • (with Thomas M. Stephens, Rutgers University). Dictionary of Latin American Identities. University of Florida Press, 2021.
  • Challenging the Black Atlantic: Manuel Zapata Olivella and Ana Maria Gonçalves. Bucknell University Press, 2021.
  • “Los poemas inéditos de Changó el gran putas: El papel del poeta, las armas y las letras”; “Apéndice: Poemas inéditos de Manuel Zapata Olivella”. Visitas al Patio 14.1 (2020): 44-63. Unpublished Poems by Manuel Zapata Olivella: 201-15. University of Cartagena, CO.
  • "Marianism and Compulsory Heterosexuality in Non-fiction Documentary and Testimonial Narrative on Brazilian Women’s Prisons." Chasqui 48, no. 2 (2019): 3-21. Arizona State University. 2019.
  • “The Black Atlantic Revisited: Ana Maria Gonçalves’s Um defeito de cor.” Callaloo 40.4 (2017): 155-73. Texas A and M.
  • “A revolução e a pedagogia do possuído no romance Oiobomé de Nei Lopes.” Bilingual: English/Portuguese. Communitas 2.4 (2018): 189-210. Universidade Federal do Acre. Reprinted at Literafro.com, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
  • “Hispania: An Iberian Union for the New Millennium.” Hispania 101.2 (2018): 175-82. American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. Invited.
+ - Academic Distinctions and Professional Societies Click to collapse
  • AATSP Teacher of the Year, 2021-22. AWLA Educator of Excellence 2021.
  • UAB Signature Core Faculty Fellow, 2020-2021 ($6,000 total)
  • AATSP Coordinator of Graduate Student Day Competitions 2021, 2022, BOD 2017-2019, 2022-Present.
  • 2 UAB Faculty Development Grants, 2016 and 2020 ($17,900 total)
  • Reader, Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies, Visitas al Patio, Hispania, PMLA, Revista de Literatura Colombiana, A Contracorriente.
  • Comité Científico, Primer Encuentro Internacional de Investigadores en Estudios Afrolatinoamericanos, Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. June 2021.
  • 3 UAB CAS’s Dean’s Grants, 2015, 2018, 2021 ($5,500 total).
  • Guest Editor (with Graciela Maglia, Instituto Caro y Cuervo). Special Issue on Maroons. Co-Authored Introduction (pp.12-21), peer-reviewed article “The Pedagogy of the Possessed in Nei Lopes’s Novel Oiobomé,” (pp.143–61) Afro-Hispanic Review 36.1 (Spring 2017).
  • 2015 AATSP Outstanding Scholarly Publication Award for “AfroReggae: Antropofagia, Sublimation, and Intimate Revolt in the Favela.” Hispania 97.3: 463-76.
  • Afro-Hispanic Review Editorial Board (2011-Present