I am a Professor of Spanish, Comparative Literature, and Latin American Studies at the University of South Carolina. My scholarship examines colonial Cuba, José Martí, Afro-Cuban writing, the Cuban Revolution, race, religion, slavery, and Latin America's broader cultural history. At USC, I have taught a wide range of courses, from early colonial literature to contemporary Latin American poetry and fiction. I have also held several academic administrative appointments, including Director of the Spanish Program, Graduate Director of the Comparative Literature Program, and Director of Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latinx Studies at the Walker Institute.

I have authored 134 single-authored, peer-reviewed articles and book chapters published in journals and edited volumes throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America, in both English and Spanish. I am likewise the author of seventeen books, including nine monographs as well as several critical editions and volumes of previously unpublished texts.

Through archival research, I have recovered more than eighty previously unknown chronicles and poems by prominent Latin American writers, including José Martí, Rubén Darío, and Mercedes Matamoros, as well as seven poems by Afro-descendant writers who were enslaved. I have also produced critical editions of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Cuban works, including Cuentos de La Habana Elegante [Tales from La Habana Elegante] (2014), Autonosuya, curiosa novela político-burlesca [Autonosuya, A Curious Political-Burlesque Novel] (2016), Mirtos de antaño y otros textos inéditos [Mirtos de Antaño and Other Unpublished Texts] (2018), and Dos norteamericanas en la Guerra de Cuba (1868–1898) [Two Americans in the Cuban War (1868–1898)] (2019).

My monographs include:

• José Martí: las máscaras del escritor [José Martí: The Writer's Masks]. University of Colorado, 2006
• Etnografía, política y poder a finales del siglo XIX: José Martí y la cuestión indígena [Ethnography, Politics, and Power at the End of the Nineteenth Century: José Martí and the Indigenous Question]. University of North Carolina Press, 2013
• Miedo negro, poder blanco en la Cuba colonial [Black Fear, White Power in Colonial Cuba]. Iberoamericana-Vervuert, 2015
• Amos, siervos y revolucionarios: la literatura de las guerras de Cuba (1868–1898). Una perspectiva transatlántica [Masters, Slaves, and Revolutionaries: The Literature of the Cuban Wars (1868–1898). A Transatlantic Perspective] (Iberoamericana-Vervuert, 2018)
• La angustia de Eros: sexualidad y violencia en la literatura cubana [The Anguish of Eros: Sexuality and Violence in Cuban Literature]. Almenara Press, 2019
• Representaciones del mal: brujos y ñáñigos en Cuba [Representations of Evil: Sorcerers and Ñáñigos in Cuba]. University of Mississippi Press, 2021
• Contra el horror: el cuerpo, la religión y la violencia en la literatura colonial cubana [Against Horror: The Body, Religion, and Violence in Colonial Cuban Literature] Editorial Verbum, 2025
• Una comunidad de dolientes: el indígena en la literatura colonial cubana [A Community of Mourners: The Indigenous in Cuba's Colonial Literature]. Purdue University Press, 2026
• El sujeto heroico moderno: drogas, masas, asesinatos y sacrificios en José Martí [The Modern Heroic Subject: Drugs, Masses, Murders, and Sacrifices in José Martí], forthcoming from Iberoamericana Vervuert in 2027.
• El Estado racial, las costumbres y la literatura en Cuba [White on Black: The Racial State, Customs, and Literature in Cuba] (Forthcoming from Editorial Verbum in 2027)

In 2014, I was awarded the Russell Research Award for Humanities and Social Sciences, the University of South Carolina’s most prestigious research distinction. In 2026, my forthcoming book, Blanco sobre negro: El Estado racial, las costumbres y la literatura en Cuba [White on Black: The Racial State, Customs, and Literature in Cuba], was selected as one of the three finalists for the VI Premio Internacional de Ensayo Humanístico Verbum, sponsored by the University of Granada and Editorial Verbum. The competition received 407 manuscripts from Ibero-America and Spain.

I am currently completing two book projects: a study of Afro-descendant literature in colonial Cuba and an examination of José Martí’s reception in contemporary art, scholarship, and literature.