English Department Faculty
Allison Curseen
Cooney Family Assistant Professor
Allison Curseen
Ph.D.
Contact
Stokes Hall S441
Telephone: 617-552-0556
Email: allison.curseen@bc.edu
Education
- B.A., Oberlin College
- M.F.A., American University
- Ph.D., Duke University
Research Interests
African American and 19th-century American Literature and Culture; Performance and Performance Studies; Child Studies; Theories of Fugitivity and Unruliness.
Department
Biography
Specializes in African American and 19th-century American literature and culture. Her particular interests include performance and performance studies, child studies, and theories of fugitivity and unruliness. Her current project examines nineteenth century depictions  of childish physical movements in the context of the Fugitive Slave Act, antitruancy laws, and antebellum anxieties about unregulated movement, blackness, and national development. Her first book Minor Moves: Black Girls and Unruly Performance in Antebellum Narratives (UNC Press, May 2026) explores the subversive poetics and fugitive significations at play in antebellum Black women writers' depiction of black girls' physical movements. Professor Curseen's work can also be found in journals like African American Review and Theatre Survey.
Publications
Book
Minor Moves: Black Girls and Unruly Performance in Antebellum Narratives. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Press, May 26, 2026.
Articles
Who Look at Me | Black Vernacular Poetics & the Possibility of Black Childrenâs Literature. African American Review. Accepted, Forthcoming.
 âSomething about Rock Glen: fugitive movement and queer black geographies in Hannah Craftsâs The Bondwomanâs Narrative.â Nineteenth Century Contexts 46.1 (January 2024): 45-54.
âBlack Girlish Departure and the âSemiotics of Theaterâ in Harriet Jacobsâs Narrative; or Lulu & Ellen: Four Opening Acts.â Special Issue. Performance and Girlhood. Theater Survey 60.1 (January 2019) 91-121.
ââEverything is Aliveâ:  Moving and Reading in Excess of American Freedom.â  American Literature. 90.1 (March 2018) 83-109.
"Never Was Born [Again]": Grace, Blackness, and Stowe's Domestic Evangelicalism.â Saving the World: Girlhood and Evangelicalism in the Nineteenth Century. Eds. Allison Giffen and Robin Cadwallader. New York: Routledge, (December 2017).
Web Publications
âThe Ecstatic Ground of âHalf Drownedâ Bodies.â  February 4, 2022. Symposium on Lindsay Recksonâs . Ed. Autumn Womack.  Syndicate (January 14 - February 11, 2022) Online.
ââNegroes Be Changing on the Dailyâ: A Review of Howard Craftâs Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green." (Here Theater. New York, NY. July-August 2015.) Not That But This Arts and Culture Webzine. Ed. Nathaniel Donnett. Web. Winter 2016.Â