- email jdematas@umass.edu
Jarrel De Matas is Visiting Lecturer at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. He holds a B.A. and M.A. In English Literature from The University of the West Indies. He is currently a final year PhD candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Jarrel’s research interests lie mainly in Caribbean sf (science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, and folklore) studies. A related strand of his research involves the intersection of Caribbean sf with science studies. His dissertation examines the culture of science that is different from the Euro-modern version of scientific rigor and empiricism. Jarrel argues that the culture of science, that is how scientific practice intersects with cultural beliefs and value, allows us to engage more deeply with societies that have been historically disenfranchised.
Jarrel is also the host and producer of the podcast, The Caribbean Science Fiction Network, the only podcast dedicated to Caribbean sf. Each episode of the podcast features an interview with different sf writers. Listen to the podcast here!
In addition to his research interests, Jarrel is a weekly columnist for The Daily Express, one of the major newspapers in his home country, Trinidad and Tobago. Jarrel’s columns and other non-academic writing can be read here.
Jarrel is also the founder and executive director of the nonprofit organization, All Inclusive TT – a youth-led and youth-centered group that advocates for anti-bullying programs, LGBTQ support, and training for teachers. More about the nonprofit can be read here.
In his leisure time, Jarrel is an avid tennis player and ritual watcher of Star Trek reruns.
Industry Experience:
Book chapters
2023 “Growing Up Speculative: Comics, Spiders, and Child Subjectivities in Rabindranath Maharaj’s The Amazing Absorbing Boy and Imam Baksh’s Children of the Spider” in Caribbean Children’s Literature, Volume 2: Critical Approaches, edited by Betsy Nies and Melissa García Vega. UP Mississippi. ISBN 9781496844583
2021 “Monsters of the Caribbean: Haunting Histories and Haunted Bodies in The Rainmaker’s Mistake and Soucouyant” in Horror Fiction of the Global South, edited by Ritwick Bhattacharjee and Saikat Ghosh. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN: 9789390077366
Articles
2022 “The Future of Public Health through Science Fiction.” Humanities, vol. 11, no. 5.
“Resistance, yet Reinforcement of the Dis-abled Binary in Special and Jeremy the Dud.” Wide Screen, vol. 9, no. 1.
“Configuring the Caribbean through sf.” SFRA Review, vol. 52, no. 1.
2021 Traumatic Tourism and the Tide: Human and Planetary Futures in Selected Stories of Drowned Worlds: Tales from the Anthropocene and Beyond. Colloquy: Culture, Text, Critique, vol. 40.
2021 “Scholarly Strains on Shaky Ground: Caribbeanness and the Campus in Marking Time and Grounds for Tenure.” Anthurium, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 1-11.
2020 “Taking Flight: Narrating the LGBT Caribbean Nation in Selected Stories of If I Had the Wings.” The Researcher, vol. 30, no. 1.
2020 “More than Movies: Reconceptualizing Race in Black Panther and Get Out.” Popular Culture Studies Journal, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 120-138.
2019 “Of Cyborgs and Immortal Women: Speculative Fictions of Caribbean Posthumanity in Selected Stories of New Worlds, Old Ways: Speculative Tales from the Caribbean.” JWIL, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 39-81.
2019 “When No Means Yes: BDSM, Body Modification, and Japanese Womanhood as Monstrosity in Snakes and Earrings and Hotel Iris.” Polish Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 55, no. 4, pp. 101-115.
2018 “A Postmodern-Caribbean ménage à trois: Intercourses with Art, History, and Sexuality in The Island Quintet.” The Criterion, vol. 9, no. 6, pp. 191-209.
2018 “Adopting the Shadows: Caribbean Childhood Noir in Kevin Jared Hosein’s The Repenters and Ezekiel Alan’s Disposable People.” Caribbean Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 1-14.
2017 “Crtl + Alt/HyperText: Toward a Remediated Caribbean Literary Aesthetic.” JWIL, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 9-27.
2017 “Making the Nation Great Again: Trumpism, euro-scepticism, and the surge of populist nationalism.” Journal of Comparative Politics, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 19-36.
Review
2018 “Speculating the Caribbean.” Small Axe, vol. 28.
Connect:
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