Gina Athena Ulysse is a Haitian-American anthropologist, feminist, poet, performance artist and activist. Professor Ulysse earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. She worked as a professor of anthropology at

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

in Middletown, Connecticut, before joining the Feminist Studies department at UC Santa Cruz in fall 2020. Ulysse is most known for her 2015 book ''Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post-Quake Chronicle''. She is a feminist artist-anthropologist-activist, and self-described Post-Zora Interventionist. An interdisciplinary methodologist, her research interests culminate at the intersections of geopolitics, historical representations and the dailiness of Black diasporic conditions.

Publications

"Because When God Is Too Busy: Haiti, Me, & The World" is a

one-woman show A solo performance, sometimes referred to as a one-man show or one-woman show, features a single person telling a story for an audience, typically for the purpose of entertainment. This type of performance comes in many varieties, including auto ...

written and performed by Ulysse that combines history, theory, and personal narrative in spoken word with Vodou chants to reflect on childhood memories, social justice, spirituality, and the incessant dehumanization of Haitians. ''Because When God is Too Busy: Haiti, me & THE WORLD'' was published in book form on April 7, 2017. The book won the 2018 Connecticut Center for the book Award in poetry, and was longlisted for a 2017 PEN Open Book Award. Her first monograph, based on her dissertation research, ''Downtown Ladies: Informal Commercial Importing, A Haitian Anthropologist and Self-Making in Jamaica'' (Chicago, 2007), received honorable mention in the Caribbean Studies Association Book Prize. Her second book, ''Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post Quake Chronicle'' (Wesleyan, 2015) was published as a tri-lingual edition in English, Kreyòl and French. In addition to several anthologies, her prose and other short form writing has appeared in the referred journals: AnthroNow, Feminist Studies, Gastronomica, Journal of Haitian Studies, Liminalities, PoemMemoirStory, Souls, and

Transition Magazine ''Transition Magazine'' was established in 1961 by Rajat Neogy as ''Transition Magazine: An International Review''. It was published from 1961 to 1976 in various countries on the African continent, and since 1991 in the United States. In recent y ...

Education

Ulysse holds a BA from

Upsala College Upsala College (UC) was a private college affiliated with the Swedish-American Augustana Synod (later the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church) and located in East Orange in Essex County, New Jersey in the United States. Upsala was founded in ...

, an MA from

, and a PHD from

Awards

In 2010, she was awarded the Ronald C. Foreman Jr. Lecture Award for Academic Excellence and Social Responsibility by the African-American Studies Program at University of Florida. In 2015, she was the recipient of Wesleyan's Binzwanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching, as well as the Haitian Studies Association's (HSA) Excellence in Scholarship awards. In 2018, for recognition of her various works in the public sphere, she was awarded the Anthropology in the Media Award (AIME) by the

American Anthropological Association The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...

References

American anthropologists American women anthropologists American women poets Haitian anthropologists Haitian women anthropologists Living people Wesleyan University faculty University of Michigan alumni 1966 births American women academics 21st-century American women {{US-anthropologist-stub