Tulane University

Contact Info
agibson3@tulane.edu

Department Affiliation
Department of Global Education

Biography

My research explores how performance becomes a staging ground to construct a sense of group cohesion across cultures, distances, and geographic imaginaries. While my earlier scholarly research focused on the New Orleans’ Latin American community as a point of departure, my current scholarly research embarks on an exploration of issues of belonging, identity, and intercultural performance in the context of global exchanges in the field of higher education as well as in Brazilian peripheral communities.

My first book, Post-Katrina Brazucas: Brazilians in New Orleans (UNO Press: 2012), cut across disciplinary methodologies by using the lenses of literary and cultural studies, performance, dance, and ethnography to approach my research subject of migration. I engaged with contemporary cultural theory related to the construction of hybrid identities through migration and literary theory surrounding the discourses of testimonio fiction. This research also became the subject of a subsequent book chapter concerning artistic performances by Brazilian immigrants in New Orleans in Performing Brazil edited by Kathryn Sanchez and Severino Albuquerque.

My second book, Hispanic and Latino New Orleans: Immigration and Identity since the 18th Century (co-authored, LSU Press: 2015), is marked by my sense of activism and active involvement in the local Latin American community in New Orleans. I was awarded the Cervantes Award in 2016 for my contribution to the local Hispanic American Arts Foundation of New Orleans and the book was awarded the J.B Jackson book prize for contribution of the year to the historical and ethnic geography of the United States by the Association of American Geographers in 2015. This research inserts itself in the escalating debates about immigration, informing theories of assimilation, social capital accumulation, and identity formation. It provides the first study of how diverse Hispanic and Latino communities have helped to create the Crescent City as a distinctive US place over several centuries, with an emphasis on the period leading up to Katrina to the present.

Currently, my research has moved towards immigrant communities in the peripheral communities of São Paulo where, in the last decade, beginning in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, literary saraus (soirees) have become spaces that reconceptualize public relationships to literature. I am particularly interested in the body as a component of the literary text offering visual, auditory, and kinesthetic knowledge

Finally, my administrative responsibilities at Tulane have instilled an interest in researching interdisciplinary approaches to methodology that link critical studies of immigration to student mobility in study abroad through intercultural development theories, performance, film, literature, and popular music analysis. The impact of how external factors such as class size; study abroad program model; level of immersion; living situation (with locals, U.S. Americans or international students); second language acquisition; areas of study (major/minor); the extent to which students travel; and the occurrence of traumatic events affect students’ intercultural growth and development are covered in my current research in the field of international education.

• B.A., Dartmouth College, Spanish and Latino Studies; Portuguese minor, 2003
• M.A., Tulane University, Latin American Studies, 2007
• Ph.D., Tulane University, Latin American Studies, 2010

• Administrative Assistant Professor, Department of Global Education, Tulane University, 2014-
• Professor of Practice, Tulane University, 2012-
• Zemurray Stone Post Doc Teaching Fellow, Tulane University, 2012-
• Instructor, Tulane University, 2006-2011

• Associate Director of Intercultural Learning, 2016-
• Administrator, Tulane Semester Abroad Program in Cuba, 2015-
• Faculty Director, International Studies Activism and Networking (INSTANT), 2015
• Coordinator, CIAPA, Tulane University, 2012-2014
• On Site Coordinator, Payson Center in Cuba, 2013-2014
• On Site Director, Tulane Semester Abroad Program in Cuba, 2011, 2014
• On Site Director, Rassias Institute, Spain, 2011
• On Site Director, Tulane Summer Abroad Program in Costa Rica, 2010, 2012
• Princeton Day School, Spanish Teacher, 2003-2005

Research & Teaching Specializations: Cuban and Brazilian performance cultures; Brazilian immigration to the United States, Cultural Studies, Portuguese

• Simón Rodriguez Award for the Best Undergraduate Teacher, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, 2015, 2016
• CELT Funding Award, 2015
• J.B. Jackson Book Prize, Contribution of the Year to Ethnic and Historical Geography of the US, Association of American Geographers, 2015
• National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar Grant, 2013
• Fellowship for Research on the Global South, Tulane University, 2009
• Graduate Student of the Year, Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, 2008
• William J. Griffith Latin American Studies Instructor of the Year, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, 2008
• Donald Robertson Award for best graduate paper in the Humanities written on Latin American Content: “Brazuca in NOLA: A Cultural Analysis of Brazilian Immigration to New Orleans Post-Katrina,” 2007
• Tinker Fellowship Research Grant, awarded for thesis research in Cuba, Tulane University, 2007

• Spanish
• Portuguese

• Cuba
• Brazil
• Costa Rica

• Forthcoming. “Teaching Intercultural Competence Through Guiding Social Media Usage in the Study Abroad Office and Classroom.” Co-authored with Emily Capdeville.
• 2017. “Vínculos históricos entre Nueva Orleans, Luisiana y Cuba.” Revista Universidad de la Habana. No 283: 44-59.
• 2015. “Performing Cultural Visibility: Brazilian Immigrants, Mardi Gras,and New Orleans.” In Performing Brazil: Essays on Culture, Identity and Performing Arts.
• 2015. The Hispanic and Latino New Orleans: Immigration and Identity Since the Eighteenth Century. LSU Press.
• 2014. “Rediscovering lo cubano Through Capoeira in Cuba.” Postcolonialist. 2(1).
• 2013. “Sambando New Orleans: Dancing Race, Gender, and Place with Casa Samba.” Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 31.
• 2012. Post-Katrina Brazucas: Brazilian Immigrants in New Orleans. The University of New Orleans Press.
• 2012. “Parading Brazil Through New Orleans: Brazilian Immigrant Interaction with Casa Samba of New Orleans.” Latin American Music Review.
• 2010. “Voz, Narrativa e Sexo: O Brasil de Nélida Piñon em República dos Sonhos.” Brasil/Brazil [Brown University] 23 (2010): 37-53.
• 2009. “Vencendo Confins: A Voz Resistente Na Narrativa de Kehinde em Um Defeito de Cor.” Pterodactilo 7 http://pterodactilo.com/numero7/?p=1063.
• 2008. “Brazuca in NOLA: A Cultural Analysis of Brazilian Immigration to New Orleans Post-Katrina.” Latin American Journal of Popular Culture 27: 103-128.

Recently-Taught Latin American-Related Courses: Brazilian Film, Introduction to Brazilian Literature

Full CV or Website
Curriculum Vitae
Departmental Biography