Barry

Rebecca is a first-year M.A. in the Teaching Concentration whose interests center around the complex and sometimes contentious interplay between the fields of science fiction, speculative fiction, and Afrofuturism. Specifically, she is interested in how texts from these traditions interact with theories of temporality, spirituality, and ancestral memory, and how they create contemporary literary spaces for intellectual engagement that promote earnest spiritual dialogue. She also researches works which explicitly acknowledge their borrowings and ideological foundations from predecessor texts, and the pedagogical utility of participating in acts of reading which recursively promote further reading. Prior to attending UVA, Rebecca variously taught English, ESL, History, Theater, Journalism, and other subjects over the course of seven years in Minnesota, Shanghai, Brussels, and Connecticut. She graduated with a B.A. in English from St. Olaf College in 2014.