CLAIRE OBERON GARCIA
750 E. Boulder Street
Colorado Springs, CO 80903
719.502.1794 mobile
cgarcia@coloradocollege.edu
claireoberon@gmail.com
My career in higher education has been shaped by my commitment to the collaborative creation of a relevant,
engaging, rigorous liberal arts educational experience for students from a diversity of backgrounds. I am committed
to academic freedom and take responsibility for contributing to the creation of campus communities where all
members are seen, heard, respected and have the resources to thrive.
EDUCATION
Ph.D., English and American Literature, University of Denver, 1991
B.A., Philosophy and Literature, Bennington College, 1978
Certificate, Black Europe Summer School, Summer 2014
Council of Europe French Level C1 Classroom Experience, Institut de Touraine 2014, 2013, 2012
EMPLOYMENT
Professor, English Department, Colorado College, 2009-present
Acting Provost, Colorado College 2020-2021
Dean of the Faculty, Colorado College 2019-2021
Director, Race Ethnicity and Migration Studies Program, 2013-2016
Interim Chair, English Department, Colorado College, 2007-2008
Core Faculty, Race and Ethnic Studies Program, 2006-2013
Core Faculty, Feminist and Gender Studies Program, 2010-2016
Director, American Ethnic Studies/American Cultural Studies Program, 1999-2006
Associate Professor, English Department, Colorado College, 1997-2009
Assistant Professor, English, Colorado College, 1991-1997
Riley Scholar, Colorado College, 1990-1991
RESEARCH INTERESTS: Gender and the Black Atlantic; Race, Gender and Modernism;
African American Literature and Culture; Slavery Museums and Commemorations; Afropean Women’s
Literature; Black Europe; U.S. Literature 1860-1940
COURSES TAUGHT: Literature of the New Negro Era; Contemporary African American Women Writers; 19
th
Century African American Women Writers; Black Writers in Paris 1900-1960 (on-site in Paris, France);
Contemporary Afropean Women Writers; Sexual Diversity in Francophone African Literature and Film; The
Harlem Renaissance; Literary Allusion in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man; Gender and Modernism; The Politics of
the African Diaspora in Literature and Film 1884-1960; Narratives of Identity: Caribbean Writers; Willa
Cather’s West; Passing Narratives; Introduction to the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity; Theories of
Race and Ethnicity; Feminist Methodologies; Race, Class, Gender; Introduction to Literary Theory; Literature
of the New Woman Era; American Realism; 19
th
Century American Women Writers; Virginia Woolf: Gender
and Violence; Henry James; Edith Wharton; 19
th
Century British Novel; Introduction to Literature; Senior
Seminar on Wharton and James
GRANTS (most recent)
Principal Investigator, Mellon Foundation Grant, “Humanities for OUR Times: From Epistemologies and
Methodologies to Liberatory Creative Practices.” January 2022- present. $1.2 million for a two-year grant
2
period.
PUBLICATIONS
Books and Book Chapters
“Making the Transition from Faculty to Dean of Faculty during Major Institutional Change.” Academic
Trajectories (So you want to become a dean?). Kate Conley and Shaily Menon, eds. Vernon Press. 2022
“Black Women Writers in Early Twentieth Century Paris,” Routledge Companion to Black Women’s Cultural
Histories. Janell Hobson, ed. Routledge Press. 2021
“Remapping the Metropolis: Theorizing Black Women’s Subjectivities in Interwar Paris” in Black French
Women and the Struggle for Equality 1848-2016. Félix Germain and Silyane Larcher, editors. University of
Nebraska Press Series France Overseas: Studies in Empire and Decolonization, 2018
“African American Women Artists’ Magical Truths” in the exhibit catalogue for Beyond Mammy, Jezebel, and
Sapphire. 2016
From Uncle Tom’s Cabin to The Help: Critical Perspectives on White-Authored Narratives of Black Life, Lead
Editor with Vershawn Young and Charise Pimentel. Palgrave-Macmillan, 2014
“’No one, I am sure, is ever homesick in Paris’: Jessie Fauset’s French Imaginary,” book chapter in Paris,
Capital of the Black Atlantic: Literature, Modernity, and Diaspora, Jonathan Eburne and Jeremy Braddock,
editors. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013
“Citizens of Babylon: Henry James’s Modern Parisian Women.” Book chapter in Henry James’s Europe:
Heritage and Transfers, Dennis Tredy, Annick Duperray and Adrian Harding, editors. Open University Press,
2011
“Black Bourgeois Women’s Narratives in the Post-Reagan, ‘Post-Civil Rights’, ‘Post-Feminist’ Era,” book
chapter in From Bourgeois to Boojie: Black Middle-Class Performances, Vershawn Young and Bridget Tsuemi,
editors. Wayne State University Press, 2010
“Jessie Redmon Fauset, Reconsidered.” Book chapter in The Harlem Renaissance Revisited, Jeffrey Ogbar,
editor. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010
“’Have YOU Ever Lived on Brewster Place?’: Teaching African American Literature at a Predominantly White
Institution”, Book Chapter in I’ve Got a Story to Tell: Identity and Place in the Academy, Jackson, Jordan, and
Jordan, eds. Peter Lang Publishing, 1999
Articles
Hindsight 2020: “American Studies 102: Survey of 21
st
Century US “Race” Relations with Professor Iqbal
Penelope-Nkotto.” The Colorado Magazine. January 2021
“Fighting for the Right to Remember: More museums and sites dedicated to the memory of slavery are being
created, but they’re igniting debate,” co-authored with Alecia McKenzie, New African Magazine, March 2016
“‘On being young- a woman- and colored’ in Paris and Tangiers: The “strange longings” of Anita Thompson
Dickinson Reynolds’ Early Years”, invited submission to a special issue of Palimpsest: A Journal on Women,
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Gender, and the Black Atlantic/Black Europe: Subjects, Struggles, and Shifting Perceptions, Fall 2015
“After Delacroix, After Said: Et les Femmes?” in the exhibit catalogue, ReOrientations: Defining and Defying
19
th
Century French Images of the Arab World. 2015
“Race, Mad Men, and Nostalgia,” http://thefeministwire.com/2012/05/race-mad-men-and-nostalgia/
March, 2012
“Black Women Writers, Modernism, and Paris,” International Journal of Francophone Studies, April, 2011.
“’For a few days we were dwellers in Africa’: Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Dark Algiers the White”, Ethnic Studies
Review, October/November 2007 30(1/2) 103-114
“A 'Native Expatriate' Reads James," Henry James Review, Winter 1995 16 (3) 299-303
"The Shopper and the Shopper's Friend: Lambert Strether and Maria Gostrey's Consumer Consciousness,"
Henry James Review, Spring 1995 16 (2) 153-171
"Emotional Baggage: Teaching Black Literature in a Predominantly White Institution," in the Chronicle of
Higher Education. July 27, 1994
UNDER CONTRACT
‘For they have seen the relativity of all things’: Black Women Writers in Paris 1900-1960. Under contract with
the University of Georgia Press.
IN PROGRESS
Book project, with Alecia McKenzie, novelist and journalist, Black Atlantic Slavery Museums and
Commemorations
Book project: Selected Works by Jessie Redmon Fauset. With Carolyn Wedin, Professor Emerita, University of
Wisconsin-Whitewater. Proposal under consideration by The Feminist Press.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“Making the Transition from Faculty to Dean of Faculty during a Time of Major Institutional Change.” Modern
Language Association Annual Meeting. January 2020
“Gwendolyn Bennett’s Discovery of her ‘Strange New Patriotism’ in Paris.” Association for the Study of the
Worldwide African Diaspora Conference. November 2019
“Paulette Nardal’s Black Catholic Feminism and the Duties of Citizenship.” Caribbean Studies Association
Conference. June 2018
“’Encounters on the Seine’: Black Meets Black 2018.” Invited presentation for the seminar, Blackness in 21
st
Century France. American Comparative Literature Association Conference, March 2018
“Fighting for the Right to Remember: Curating the Story of Enslavement Across the Black Atlantic.
Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora Conference. November 2017
“The State of Black Studies in Europe.” Panel Organizer and Moderator for panel featuring Kahinde Andrews
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(Founder and Director of Black Studies, University of Birmingham University, UK), Kwame Nimako (Founder
and Director of the Summer School on Black Europe), and Justine Talley (Co-founder of the Collegium for
African American Research). Collegium for African American Research Conference, Malaga, June 2017
“From Negroland to #blacklivesmatter: Memoirs, Markets, and Class”, The Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies,
Europe and America, Warsaw, June 2016
“Hiring and Mentoring in Today’s Job Market”, invited presentation at the American Literature Association
Annual Conference, June 2016
“Black Tourists and Paris”, Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora, Charleston,
November 2015
“A New Negro Woman in Algiers: Jessie Fauset’s 1926 Sojourn in Algeria”, Collegium for African American
Research, Liverpool, June 2015
Roundtable Participant, Topographies of Black Desire and Intersectionality, Collegium for African American
Studies, Liverpool, June 2015
‘“Belles Armes/Beautiful Weapons’: Roberte Horth and the Nardal Sisters’ Paris”, Capitals: Black Paris.
American Association of Comparative Literature Annual Conference, March 2014
“On Being Young—a Woman—and Colored” --in Paris and Tangiers: A Geocritical Approach to Mapping Anita
Thompson’s Modernism”. Panel organizer for “Vagabonds, Vedettes, and Doudous” for Afromodernisms 2,
International Conference, June 2011
“’On Being Young--a Woman, --and Coloured’ in Paris and Tangiers: Anita Thompson Dickinson’s Vagabond
Modernism.” Collegium for African American Research International Conference, April, 2011
“The French Imaginaries of Jessie Fauset and Paulette Nardal.” Panel organizer and presenter, Afromodernist
Feminisms: “Puisque tout est relatif”/”They have understood the relativity of all things.” Afromodernisms:
An International Conference presented by The Tate Modern/Liverpool and the University of Liverpool, April,
2010
“Jessie Redmon Fauset and Paulette Nardal: A Tale of Two ‘Midwives.’” The Francophone Caribbean and
North America International Conference, The Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and
Francophone Studies, February, 2010
“Citizens of Babylon: Henry James’s Parisian Women in The American, The Ambassadors, and The Tragic
Muse.” European Society of Jamesian Studies. April 2009
“Jessie Redmon Fauset and Modernism.” Society for the Study of American Women Writers. October 2009
“Jessie Fauset: Transnational Writer, Black Cosmopolitan” National Council for Black Studies. March 2008
“ ‘The value of a translation lies in its adequacy’: Translation, Representation, and Mutilation in Jessie
Redmon Fauset’s Early Work.” The Harlem Renaissance Revisited Symposium, March 2008
“’For a few days we were dwellers in Africa’: Jessie Fauset’s Dark Algiers the White”, National Association for
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Ethnic Studies First International Conference, November 2006
“Citizens of Babylon: The Metropolitan Women of Henry James’s The Ambassadors” Society for the Study of
Narrative Literature, April 2006
“Is Lily Bart Black?” Edith Wharton Conference, London. June 2005
“’Dangerously Free’ or ‘Steady and Secured’: The Black Father in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and
Gwendolyn Parker’s These Same Long Bones”, The Nordic Association for American Studies Conference, May
2005
“‘Slavery’s Shadows Fall Even There’: Black Surrogacy in Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth,” American
Literary Association Conference, October 2004
Panel Moderator, “Edith Wharton and Politics.” Edith Wharton Society International Conference, July 2003
“‘Dangerously Free’ or ‘Steadied and Secured’: Gwendolyn Parker Talks Back.” Society for the Study of
American Women Writers Conference, February 2001
“‘Dangerously Free’: Toni Morrison’s Construction of Black Masculinity in The Bluest Eye.” African American
Literature and Culture Conference, 2000
“Eye and Bones: Reconfiguring African American Male Sexuality in Toni Morrison and Gwendolyn Parker.”
American Women Writers of Color Conference, October, 1999
“Reading Black Middle-Class Ideology in Black Women’s Novels.” American Studies Association, October
1996
"The Contemporary Mulatta: The Black Middle-Class Heroine in the Post-Civil Rights Era" to the Western
Social Science Association, Women's Studies Division, April 1994
PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP (selected)
History Colorado State Historian’s Advisory Council, 2022-present
Presenter, “Wars of Reckoning and The Great Reconciliation.” Colorado Chautauqua, April 2022
Scholar Consultant, History Colorado. Digitalized Colorado Ku Klux Klan Membership Records. 2021
Program Committee Member, Resource Contributor and Writer, Colorado Humanities’ Changing the Legacy
of Race Program. 2018-present.
Invited Panelist, Colorado College Committee on Class and Social Inequality, March 2017
Guest Teacher, “Understanding Ferguson,” Buena Vista Montessori School, February 2016
Keynote Speaker, World Affairs Council, Colorado Springs, “Feminism, Citizenship, and Globalization,” March
2015
Keynote Speaker, Black History Month Celebration, Western State Colorado University, February 2015
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Keynote Speaker, Martin Luther King Day Celebration and Luncheon, El Pueblo Museum, Pueblo, CO, January
2015
Guest Lecturer, The Center for the Study of the American West, University of Colorado-Boulder, September
2015
Panelist, “Cosmopolitanism,” Jaipur Literary Festival, September 2015
2016
Keynote, Denver Public Schools Parent Institute, “Avoiding the Summer Slide” April, 2014
Panelist, “The Butler” and Civil Rights, Pikes Peak Community College, February 2014
Panelist, “The N**** Word,” Colorado College Black Student Union, February 2014
Commencement Speaker, Colorado Springs School District 11 Adult Literacy Program, May 2013
Panelist, Women of Color and Leadership: Then and Now, El Pueblo History Museum, March 2013
Keynote Speaker, Coloradoans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, February 2013
Guest Speaker, “Controversies Surrounding The Help,” El Pueblo History Museum, Pueblo, Colorado, October
2013
Guest Speaker, Women’s Studies Fair, Colorado State University-Pueblo: “Black Feminist Scholarship in the
Age of Michelle Obama, Nicki Minaj, and The Help”, April 2012
Panelist, From Trayvon to Tulsa, NAACP Colorado Springs Branch, April 2012
Panelist, The Help: A panel discussion about race, gender, class and
friendship in the pre-Civil Rights South, Pikes Peak Community College, March 2012
Keynote Speaker, Colorado Black Women for Political Action, “Empowering Black Women in the Age of
Michelle Obama and The Help”, October 2011
Guest Speaker, “Black Modernist Women Writers”, Colorado State University-Pueblo, March 2010
Guest Speaker, “New Views of the Harlem Renaissance”, Pikes Peak Community College, February 2010
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION LEADERSHIP
Executive Board Member, Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora 2023-
Board Secretary, Collegium for African American Research, 2017-2022
Board Member, Collegium for African American Research, 2015-2022
SERVICE TO THE PROFESSION (most recent)
Peer Reviewer, MELUS: Journal of the Multi-Ethnic Literature Society 2022
External Review Team Member, College of the Holy Cross English Department, October 2021
External Review Team Member, University of Wyoming English Department May 2021
Panelist, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship February 2021
Peer Reviewer, Routledge Press, 2017
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Editorial Reviewer, Quarterly Horse, 2015-2020
Peer Reviewer, book manuscript for Palgrave-MacMillan, April 2016
Peer Reviewer, MELUS: Journal of the Multi-Ethnic Literature Society, 2016
Peer Reviewer, African American Literature, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014
Peer Reviewer, MELUS: Journal of the Multi-Ethnic Literature Society, 2014
I have served as an external reviewer on several tenure files from other colleges and universities.
COLLEGE SERVICE (selected)
Co-chair HUMANITIES@CC, 2019-2021
External Review of Racism at CC Advisory Committee, 2018-2019
Faculty Co-Chair, Chaplain Search, 2016-2017
Chair, Humanities Executive Committee, 2015-201
Humanities Executive Committee representative, 2013-2016
Founder and Member, CC Faculty of Color Caucus 2007-2014
NONPROFIT BOARD SERVICE (last 10 years)
Board Member, Colorado Humanities, 2015-2022
Advisory Committee, Byers-Evans Center for Women’s History in Denver, Colorado 2017-2020
Board of Directors, Colorado Partnership for Child Development, 2014-2016
President’s Advisory Council, Girl Scouts of Southern Colorado, 2012-2016
Board of Directors, Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival, 2005-2014. President of the Board, 2011-2013
Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame, Board Member 2009- 2012
PREVIOUS COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES (Selected)
County Coordinator, Ken Salazar Campaign for Senate, 2004
Founding Member, Alliance for Quality Public Schools, 2004-2007
Board of Directors, Colorado Springs Dance Theatre, 2003-2007
Board Member, Old Colorado City Branch Library Foundation, 2003- 2009
Multicultural Sounding Board for D-11, 2000-2007
Guest Speaker, National Honor Society at Wasson High School, 2003 and 2004
Board of Directors, Center for Christian-Jewish Dialogue, 1998-2003
County Coordinator for the Campaign to Re-Elect Ken Salazar, 2002
Board of Directors, Urban League of the Pike’s Peak Region, 1999-2002
Board of Advisors, Pikes Peak Y/USO, 1989-1999. Chair, Programming and Volunteer Committee, 1996-1999;
Chair, Religious Emphasis Committee, 1995
Hispanic Chamber Foundation Scholarship Committee, 1999-2001
Urban League Scholarship Committee, 2000-2002
Mentor for District 11 high school students interested in literary studies, 1993-present
Partner in Reading at West Middle School1998-2003
Board of Directors, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1990-1995
MEMBERSHIP IN PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
American Comparative Literature Association
American Studies Association
Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora
Caribbean Studies Association
Collegium for African American Research
Modern Language Association
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