Njelle Hamilton
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENTS OF ENGLISH AND AFRICANA STUDIES
101A Minor Hall
Office Hours: Wed 1-4pm via Zoom. Kindly make an appointment ahead of time at: njhamilton.youcanbook.me
Class Schedule: T/Th 2:00-3:15, 3:30-4:45
Research Areas:
Caribbean Literature; Postcolonial Theory; Sound Studies; Afrofuturism/ Sci-Fi/ History of Science; Time Studies; Trauma and Memory; The Novel.
Biography
Njelle W. Hamilton is Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies. She specializes in post-1970 Caribbean literary and cultural studies, with particular focus on narrative theory and novel craft. Her first monograph, Phonographic Memories: Popular Music and the Contemporary Caribbean Novel (Rutgers, 2019), investigates how Caribbean subjects turn to nation music when personal and cultural memory have been impacted by time, travel, or trauma. Her essays on sound studies, time studies, trauma theory, narrative theory, have appeared in Anthurium, Journal of West Indian Literature, Small Axe, and beyond. Her current project, tentatively titled The Physics of Caribbean Time, reads recent time-bending novels through the lens of physics and Caribbean theory.
Degrees
Ph.D. Brandeis University
M.A. Brandeis University
B.A. University of the West Indies, Mona
M.A. Brandeis University
B.A. University of the West Indies, Mona
Books
- Phonographic Memories: Popular Music and the Contemporary Caribbean Novel. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP (2019).
Fiction
- “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Gyal,” Caribbean in Transit Arts Journal, 3:6, 2021 (pp.154-158).
- “Hummingbird Dub,” PREE: Caribbean Writing 6: Dub. November 2020. https://preelit.com/2020/11/15/hummingbird-dub/
NEW and FORTHCOMING
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“‘Sound Sistrens’: Female DJs and Feminist Sonorities in Caribbean Fiction.” The Routledge Handbook of Caribbean Studies. Edited by Patricia Noxolo, Kevin Rhiney, Ronald Cummings. Forthcoming, 2025.
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“‘A Long Way from Boston’: Loving and Listening to New Kids on the Block as a Jamaican Adolescent.” The Adolescentia Project: Essays on Music, Adolescence and Identity. Eds. Mary-Beth Ray and Carrie Teresa. Routledge, 2024 (65-77).
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“Sounding Jamaican—After Carolyn Cooper.” Small Axe 74, July 2024 (90-102).
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Cummings, Ronald and Njelle Hamilton. “Dialogues: Reviewing the Queer Caribbean.” Special cross-journal issue: Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal 17, iss. 1 (2021).
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“Annotating History: Marlon James and Cosmo Whyte in Conversation.” Grand Journal, June 2021. https://grandjournal.net/annotating-history-marlon-james-cosmo-whyte/
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“‘Another Shape to Time’: Tentacle’s Spiral Now.” sx salon 34, June 2020. http://smallaxe.net/sxsalon/discussions/another-shape-time-tentacles-spiral-now
COURSES
- ENGL 2599 Routes, Writing, Reggae
- ENGL 3560 Musical Fictions
- ENGL 3560 Being Human: Race, Technology, and the Arts
- ENGL 4560; 8500 Caribbean Sci-Fi and Fantasy
- ENGL 4560; 8500 Caribbean Poetics
- ENGL 4560 Music of the Black Atlantic