Catherine Culvahouse Fox
Catherine Culvahouse Fox specializes in the literary and dramatic traditions of the Caribbean in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
At the Society of Fellows, Fox is focusing on her manuscript, tentatively titled Christophe’s Ghost. In it, she explores a phenomenon whereby mid-twentieth-century Caribbean writers experimented with the genre of tragedy as a tool for political thinking. These writers, including Aimé Césaire, Derek Walcott, and Alejo Carpentier, looked to the past to create new philosophies of resistance and alternative histories through the figure of the Haitian king Henry Christophe (1767-1820). Her second book project, Transnational Debates in the Golden Age of Caribbean Theater, 1949-1969 charts a most singular moment in West Indian drama during the period surrounding the short-lived West Indies Federation.
Fox completed her PhD in Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Yale University in 2020. While at Yale, she also enjoyed teaching from the art collection as a Wurtele Gallery Teacher at the Yale University Art Gallery. Beyond her interest in the Caribbean, her research spans literary theory, the childhood memoir, surrealism, postcolonial theory, metahistory, the usable past, and the long Harlem Renaissance.
Website: https://www.catherineculvahousefox.com
Email: cfox@hku.hk