Teaching

What does it mean to call something human? This seminar used the figure of the robot to ask how cultures imagine technology and automation, and where they draw the boundaries of the human. Stories about machines are also stories about labor—whose work is valued, and what follows when work is automated—and about personhood: who counts as a person, and on what grounds. Reading across literature, film, and music, students analyzed unfamiliar media on their own terms, asking how each form builds an argument about the human. Writing was the seminar’s method of inquiry: reflective portfolios made revision central to assessment, so that students could trace how their thinking about these questions changed over the semester.

I teach English Composition II through literature and cultural works, with particular attention to Caribbean and U.S.-Latinx writing. Students examine how literary form shapes experiences of place, migration, memory, and belonging while developing skills in close reading, formal analysis, argumentation, and scholarly research. The course progresses from sustained analysis of individual works to comparative arguments and research-based writing. Preparatory assignments, workshops, and feedback help students test interpretations, evaluate evidence, and revise their arguments as their questions become more complex.