September 2019
EDUCATION
University of Illinois at Chicago
Ph.D., English Literature, 2014
University of Notre Dame
Certificate, Catholic Theology & Scripture, 2017
Washington University in St. Louis
B.A., English Literature, minor in Women and Gender Studies, 2005
John B. Ervin Scholarship for Black Americans
PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS
2016–present: Assistant Professor, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Endowed Appointment: Delta Delta Delta Fellow in the Humanities
Affiliated Faculty: Department of American Studies, Carolina Center for Jewish Studies
2014–16: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Carolina Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
PUBLICATIONS
Articles & Book Chapters
2020: “Silent Sam’s New Civil War: The Heritage Politics of Neo-Confederate Fiction.” Forthcoming in Reading Confederate Monuments. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press.
2019: “Formalism at the End Times: A Modest Approach.” Forthcoming in Post45: The Journal.
2019: “From Heritage Politics to Hate: Neo-Confederate Novels & White Protectionism.” Forthcoming in Building an Architecture of Peace in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
2015: “The Plantation-Auschwitz Tradition: Forced Labor and Free Markets in the Novels of William Styron.” Twentieth-Century Literature 61.1 (Spring 2015): 1-31.
2015: “From ‘Eichmann-as-Victim’ to ‘Nazi-as-Jew’: Deconstructing Justice in American Holocaust Trial Films.” Aftermath: Genocide, Memory, and History. Karen Auerbach, ed.Melbourne: Monash University, 2015, 185-200.
2014: Danielle Christmas and Adam Brown. “When the Holocaust Comes to Harlem: Traumatic Memory, Race, and Economic (In)Justice in American Holocaust Film.” Mapping Generations of Traumatic Memory in American Narratives. Dana Mihailescu and Mihaela Precup, eds. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2014.
2011: Laura P. Hartman, Jenny Mead, Patricia H. Werhane, and Danielle Christmas. “Connecting the World Through Games: Creating Shared Value in the Case of Zynga’s Corporate Social Strategy.” Journal of Business Ethics Education8 (2011): 199-230.
Encyclopedia Articles
2019: “African American Newspapers and Magazines, World War 2-present.” Forthcoming in African American Culture: From Daishikis to Yoruba. Barbara Krauthamer and Gerald Early, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2019.
2013: “Saartje Baartman, the ‘Hottentot Venus.’” Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, 2e. Patrick L. Mason, ed. Detroit: Macmillan, 2013.
Book Reviews
2019: “How Old Jim Crow Inspired the Nazis.” James Q. Whitman’s Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law. The Common Reader. February 26, 2019.
2018: Stefan M. Wheelock’s Barbaric Culture and Black Critique: Black Antislavery Writers, Religion, and the Slaveholding Atlantic; Andrea Stone’s Black Well-Being: Health and Selfhood in Antebellum Literature; and Courtney Baker’s Humane Insight: Looking at Images of African American Suffering and Death. American Literature 90.3: 647-50.
In Progress
“The Literature of Blood and Soil: White Nationalism and a New American Canon.” Manuscript in progress.
“Plantation Pimps & Nazi Monsters: Labor, Sex, and Madness in American Holocaust and Slavery Fiction.” Manuscript in progress.
AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND HONORS
National
2018: Curt C. and Else Silberman Faculty Seminar, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
2016-18: Summer Institute on Tenure and Professional Advancement Fellow, Duke University
2016: First Book Institute, Center for American Literary Studies, Pennsylvania State University
2014: International Summer Research Workshop, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
2013–14: Mellon / American Council of Learned Societies Dissertation Completion Fellowship
2013–14: Cummings Foundation Fellowship, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
2013: Curt C. and Else Silberman Faculty Seminar, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
2012: Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization, Holocaust Educational Foundation Fellowship of Northwestern University
University
2020: Faculty Fellowship, Institute for the Arts & Humanities, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2019: R. J. Reynolds Junior Faculty Development Award, Office of the Provost, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
INVITED TALKS
2019: “From Neo-Confederate Narrative to Heritage Politics,” Cultural Formations of the Alt-Right Symposium, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, September 2019
2019: “Pop Culture vs. the ‘Olympics of Suffering’: Slavery and the Holocaust as One American Horror Story,” Black History Month Keynote Speaker, Center for Judaic Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, February 2019
2018: “Hitler’s Germany as the New Plantation,” Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Ohio State University, November 2018
2018: “What Does White Nationalist Literature Have to Do with Peacebuilding in America?,” Building a National Architecture for Peace in America, School for Conflict Analysis & Resolution, George Mason University, May 2018
2017: “Racism, Capitalism, & William Styron,” Department of English, University of Utah, November 2017
2017: “Camping Up Atrocity: Jew Hunters, Circus Plantations, and American Horror Stories,” Learning at the Margins: The Creation and Dissemination of Knowledge among African Americans and Jews since the 1880s, German Historical Institute, Howard University, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC, September 2017
2017: “From Africa to Auschwitz,” Black Cultural Center, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, April 2017
2016: “Money Made Them Do It!: Where Slavery Fiction Meets Historical Fact,” FaculTeas Program, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, April 2016
2016: “The Plantation-Auschwitz Tradition: Reimagining Slavery in Sophie’s Choice and The Confessions of Nat Turner,” Jewish Studies Program, University of California at Irvine, March 2016
2016: “Tripping into Your Scholar Self,” Keynote Address, Post45 Graduate Conference, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, February 2016
2014: “‘Pleasure me, you ebony wench!’: Sexual (Re)Production, Social Death, and the Mandingo Genre,” Americanist Speaker Series, Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, November 2014
2014: “New Directions in Holocaust Studies: The Next Generation,” Opening Plenary, Lessons & Legacies Conference XIII, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, October 2014
2014:“Sexual (Re)Production, Social Death, and the Slavery Perpetrator,” Department of History, Howard University, August 2014
2014:“The Plantation-Auschwitz Tradition: Forced Labor and Free Markets in American Holocaust and Slavery Narratives,” Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, August 2014
2014: “Tales of a Strange Fruit,” Departments of English and Africana Studies, Muhlenberg College, February 2014
2013: “Who’s Watching Whom?: Surveillance Practices and Processes,” Deakin University, Victoria, Australia, December 2013
2013: “A Parade of Villainous Vixens: Sex and Guilt in Jew Suss: Rise and Fall,” Jewish Holocaust Centre, Victoria, Australia, August 2013
2012: “When Israel Becomes Germany: Agnosticism in Robert Young’s Eichmann,” Jewish Holocaust Centre, Victoria, Australia, March 2012
CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION
Conferences convened
2014: The Future of the Past: Representing the Holocaust, Genocide, and Mass Trauma in the 21stCentury, Co-Convenor, Sponsored by Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia and the Jewish Holocaust Centre, Victoria, Australia
Panels organized
2014: “Representing Evil: Nazis, Slaveholders, and the Politics of the Perpetrator,” Modern Languages Association Annual Convention, Chicago, Illinois
2013: “Discerning Holocaust Subjectivities in a Jewish Studies Landscape,” Midwest Jewish Studies Association Conference, Spertus Institute, Chicago, Illinois
2012: “Screening Perpetrators in Holocaust Film: Guilt, Ambiguity, and Responsibility,”Lessons & Legacies Conference XII, Northwestern University
Papers presented
2019: “Silent Sam’s New Civil War: The Heritage Politics of Neo-Confederate Fiction,” Post45, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana
2019: “From Neo-Confederate Narrative to Heritage Politics,” Modern Languages Association Annual Convention, Chicago, Illinois
2019: “From Neo-Confederate Narrative to Heritage Politics,” American Historical Association Annual Conference, Chicago, Illinois
2017: “Camping Up Atrocity: Jew Hunters, Circus Plantations, and American Horror Stories,” Post45, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut
2014: “Eichmann and Hitler Gone Mad!: Nazi Fiction and the ‘Private Conception of Evil,’” Post45, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
2014: “‘Waking Up’ Rwanda in Urwintore’s The Investigation,” The Future of the Past, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
2014: “Sexual (Re)Production, Social Death, and the Slavery Perpetrator,” Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Chicago, Illinois
2013: “Repurposing the Nazi, Inhabiting the Jew: Transnational Reconciliation Narratives After ‘Never Again,’” Midwest Jewish Studies Association Conference, Spertus Institute, Chicago, Illinois
2013: “Evil and the Economic: American Narratives of Nazi Perpetrators,” International Holocaust Studies Conference – Global Perspectives on the Holocaust, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee
2013: “The Plantation-Auschwitz Tradition: Reimagining Slavery in Sophie’s Choice andThe Confessions of Nat Turner,” Aftermath – Dr. Jan Randa Conference in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
2013: “When the Holocaust Comes to Harlem: Racial and Economic (In)Justice in American Holocaust Film,” Co-author, American Historical Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana
2012: “‘Slaving to Kill Jews’: Auschwitz as Plantation in William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice,” Association for Jewish Studies Conference, Chicago, Illinois
2012: “Justice Found Guilty: Destabilizing Judgment in Post-Holocaust Trial Films,” Lessons & Legacies Conference XII, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois
2012: “Beyond the ‘Silent Scream’: Screening the Holocaust in Racialized Urban America,” Co-author, The Holocaust and Legacies of Race in the Postcolonial World: 1945–Present, University of Sydney, Australia
2011: “Resituating Eichmann, Relocating Judgment: Extra-Legal Theories of Justice in Holocaust Trial Films,” Aftermath – Dr. Jan Randa Conference in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
2009: “Caribbean Mimicry and the Ethics of Infiltration in the Age of the West Indies Federation,” British Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies Annual Conference, Georgia Southern University, Savannah, Georgia
CAMPUS TALKS
2018: “The Alt-Right and the Sentimental Novel,” Faculty Colloquium, Department of English & Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, April 2018
2018: “Ethics in Fiction: In Conversation with Sam Graham-Felsen,” Parr Center for Ethics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, February 2018
2017: Panelist, “Beyond the Headlines: Confederate Monuments, Historical Memory, and Free Speech,” Carolina Public Humanities and Chapel Hill Public Library, North Carolina, August 2017
2017: “The Inkling Prophet of Oxford: Reading C.S. Lewis,” William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, February 2017
2017: “Rethinking Southern Literature,” American South Teachers Summit, Carolina Public Humanities, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, August 2017
2016: “The Inkling Prophet of Oxford: C.S. Lewis as Academic, Apologist, and Artist,” William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, October 2016
2016: “Lord Mansfieldand the Slave Ship Zong,” Mansfield Park and Its Afterlives, Jane Austen Summer Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, June 2016
2016: Panelist, Screening and Discussion of Son of Saul (2015), Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies & Center for European Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, April 2016
2015: “What Happened to Harriet?: Emma and the Ethics of Adaptation,” Emma at 200, Jane Austen Summer Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, June 2015
2013: “‘Pleasure me, you ebony wench!’: Sexual (Re)Production, Social Death, and the Mandingo Genre,” English Department Colloquium, University of Illinois at Chicago, November 2013
COMMUNITY TALKS
2018: “White Nationalism and the Sentimental Novel,” Catholic Faculty Colloquium, Chapel Hill, North Carolina May 2018
2017: “The Plantation-Auschwitz Tradition: Racism, Capitalism, and William Styron,” Great Decisions Speakers Series, Fearrington Village, North Carolina, December 2017
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Summer 2016-present: Assistant Professor, Department of English & Comparative Literature
Spring 2015: Lecturer, Department of English & Comparative Literature
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology
Summer 2016: Lecturer, International Summer School Program
University of Illinois at Chicago
Summer 2013: Instructor, Department of English
Summer 2011: English Instructor, TRIO Academic Support Program
Fall 2008–Spring 2011: Instructor, Department of English & Chicago Civic Leadership Certificate Program
EF: Education First, Chicago, Illinois
Fall 2012-Spring 2013: Instructor, English as a Second Language, English for Foreign Professionals Program
Language Clubs International, Seoul, South Korea
Spring 2007-Summer 2008: Instructor, English as a Foreign Language, International Baccalaureate Program
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
2018-21: Steering Committee Member, Post45 Collective
2018: Article Reviewer, Holocaust and Genocide Studies
2015-18: Review Board Member, Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts & Letters
2015-17: Subfield Research Editor, Academia.edu
2015-16: Textbook Reviewer, Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior, Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation
2014: Article Reviewer, Mediations: Journal of the Marxist Literary Group
DEPARTMENTAL AND UNIVERSITY SERVICE
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2019: Steering Committee, Countering Hate Initiative, College of Arts & Sciences
2019: Search Committee, Critical Race Studies, Department of English & Comparative Literature
2018: Committee, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, Department of English & Comparative Literature
2018: Faculty Mentor, Moore Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program (MURAP)
2018: Selection Committee, Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, Office for Undergraduate Research
2018: Selection Committee, Postdoctoral Fellowships, Department of English & Comparative Literature
2018: Workshop Co-Facilitator, Faculty-of-Color & Indigenous Faculty Collective, Institute for the Arts & Humanities
2017-18: Co-Director, Graduate Student Job Placement, Department of English & Comparative Literature
2017-18: Chair, Teaching Professor Promotions Committee, Department of English & Comparative Literature
2017-18: Chair, Visiting Assistant Professor Search Committee, Department of English & Comparative Literature
2017-18: Great Books Discussion Leader, Program in the Humanities
2016-17: Course Presenter, Adult Enrichment Program, Friday Center for Continuing Education
2015-17: Panel Judge, Business Proposal Final Project, Composition Program
2014–16: Organizing Committee Member, Jane Austen Summer Program
EXTRACURRICULAR UNIVERSITY SERVICE
2015-20: Ex Libris Book Club Coordinator, Newman Catholic Student Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
2018: Panel Judge, National High School Ethics Bowl, Parr Center for Ethics, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
African American Intellectual History Society
African American Literature & Culture Society
American Association of University Professors
American Comparative Literature Association
American Studies Association
Association for Jewish Studies
Association for Women Faculty & Professionals (UNC)
Carolina Black Caucus (UNC)
Modern Language Association
Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States
National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity
Post45 Collective
Sisters of the Academy Institute
Danielle Christmas, PhD 