Erika Serrato
Assistant Professor of French
Dey 141
(919) 962-2062
serrato@email.unc.edu
Dr. Serrato specializes in indigeneity within the Francophone Caribbean literary canon and cultural imaginary. In particular, her work traces racial interrelations since the so-called discovery of the Americas, namely how Afro-creolized communities interact with and incorporate Amerindian legacies and cultural artifacts as acts of resistance, survival, and to arrive at a new definition of a native Caribbean. Her dissertation project, entitled “Amerindian Memory and Native Resistance in Francophone Caribbean Literature,” uncovers the ways in which questions of indigeneity have shaped Francophone Caribbean (Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Haiti) literature. Through pointed examples drawn from fiction, travel narratives, ethnographic accounts, dictionaries, memorial art, and rock engravings, Dr. Serrato elucidates who and what constitutes the indigenous, what and who is being remembered, who is doing the recalling, and in what structures and for what purpose the question of indigeneity arises. Prior to accepting her position at UNC, Dr. Serrato was an Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Teaching Fellow at Morehouse College. Her chapter on an edited volume consecrated to Haiti in the Latin American literary imaginary is forthcoming. She is currently working on an article regarding commemoration practices in the Caribbean.
