Dr Jason Allen-Paisant

Profile

My research is on cultural memory in the African diaspora, and I combine, and move between, disciplinary and methodological approaches (theatre studies, performance studies, poetics, literary criticism).

I graduated from the University of Oxford in 2015 with a DPhil in Medieval and Modern Languages and joined the University of Leeds in 2016 as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow. At Leeds, I serve as board member of LUCAS (Leeds University Centre for African Studies) and as member of the Leeds University Poetry Centre. 

Research interests

In September 2018, as part of my Leverhulme Fellowship at the University of Leeds, I convened a three-day international and interdisciplinary conference called ‘Memory and Performance in African-Atlantic Futures’.

I am also a creative writer. My poetry has appeared in PN Review, Callaloo, Stand, POUI, among other places, and is forthcoming in Carcanet’s New Poetries Anthology VIII.

Appearing soon

"Aimé Césaire and Vodou: Un/thinking Western epistemology". Submitted to Diacritics.

"Animist Time and the (White) Anthropocene". Forthcoming in "Animism in a Planetary Frame", special issue of New Formations, guest edited by Sam Durrant and Philip Dickinson.

"Materializing memory in the theatre of Derek Walcott". Submitted to TDR/ The Drama Review

"Dante in Caribbean Poetics: Power, Language, Race". In Elena Lombardi, Manuele Gragnolati, and Francesca Southerden (eds.), The Oxford Handbook on Dante. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.

"Ritual, memory and liminality: Reflections on twentieth-century Caribbean theatre". In Raphale Dalleo, and Curdella (eds.), Caribbean Literature in Transition, Vol 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Misperformance: Staging Law and Justice in the African diaspora. Forthcoming special issue of Callaloo.

Black Performance and the Reparative Turn. Under preparation – to be submitted to Duke University Press (book rooted in 2018 conference).

"Réalisme aliénant et théâtre de l'absurde dans Chemin de fer de Julien Mabiala Bissila". Forthcoming in Présence africaine.

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy (University of Oxford)
• MPhil (University of the West Indies)
• BA (University of the West Indies)

Professional memberships

• Memory Studies Association
• Society for Caribbean Studies
• American Comparative Literature Association