Title: Graduate Student
Program: PhD
Department: English
Office: Buttrick 4-68
Email: destiny.o.birdsong@vanderbilt.edu
Degrees
- M.F.A. in Creative Writing [Poetry], Vanderbilt University (2009)
- M.A. in English, Vanderbilt University (2007)
- M.A. in English, University of Louisiana at Lafayette (2006)
- B.A. in English and History with Highest Honors, Fisk University (2004)
Research Area
- depictions of poor whites in slave and neo-slave narratives
- the black female body and illness in Afro-Diasporic literature
- black love relationships in Afro-Diasporic literature
- hip-hop aesthetics
Current Research
- "Health and Holistic Healing; Some Observations on Black Female Character in the Works of Gloria Naylor, Edwidge Danticat, and Opal Palmer Adisa"
- "Constructions of Masculinity in the Works of Roger Mais"
- "Sugar" [MFA thesis]
Current Courses
Current Positions
- Research Coordinator for Voices From Our America
- Research Assistant for Ifeoma C. K. Nwankwo, Associate Professor of English
Previous Positions
- Consultant, The Writing Studio, 2007-2008
- Co-recruitment Coordinator, Vanderbilt University English Department, 2006-2007
- Teaching Assistant, Department of English, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, June 2005-August 2006
- Graduate Student Organization Representative for the English Department [UL], 2005-2006
- Student representative for the Graduate Committee [UL English Dept.], 2005-2006
- Graduate Student Funding Liaison for the Fifth Annual Graduate Conference on Language and Literature [UL], 2006
- Staff Member of In the Beginning [A Journal of Freshman Literature at UL], Spring 2005
Professional Societies
- Academy of American Poets
Professional Honors
- Cave Canem Fellow, 2009
- Rose Alley Press Achievement Award [VU], 2009
- Academy of American Poets Prize [VU], 2008
- Conference of Southern Graduate Schools/ProQuest UMI Distinguished Thesis Award in the Humanities and Fine Arts, 2007 [for thesis completed at UL]
- Richard G. Neiheisel Phi Beta Kappa Endowed Award for the Outstanding M.A. Graduate of Spring 2006 [UL]
- The Phi Beta Kappa Society, Fisk University, 2004
Miscellaneous
"He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him."
--Gerard Manley Hopkins