Joanna Smolec, MA
Meet the Contributor
Area(s) of Atlantic Study: New Orleans, Louisiana (U.S.), Haiti
Academic Background
Joanna is a PhD student at York University in Toronto, Ontario. Her research examines the narrativization, romanticization, and memory of New Orleans and Haiti in the nineteenth century. She received her HBA in History and Linguistics and MA in History from the University of Toronto. Focusing on the intersections between popular culture and nostalgia, Joanna seeks to untangle the complex gender, racial, and class dynamics that contribute to the sanitization of Atlantic history.
Research Interests
Outside of her doctoral project, Joanna is interested in research relating to:
Histories of Sex Work
Cultural History
Labour History
Memory
Popular Culture
Outside of Written in the Waves, Joanna is a staff editor on the peer-reviewed and open-access scholarly journal, Left History, which is dedicated to publishing emerging and established scholars from a variety of academic disciplines.
Why Written in the Waves?
Joanna’s research aims to centre Haiti in the examination of historical nostalgic myths and representations of New Orleans and the United States at large. Despite its extensive (and undeniable!) influence across the Atlantic—both prior to and following the Haitian Revolution—Haiti has been continually dismissed and denigrated, particularly in histories of the United States. She hopes to further destabilize the myth of American ‘exceptionalism’ in “traditional” written narratives, focusing on affect, memory, popular culture, and the ‘mundane.’ Written in the Waves encourages us to probe more deeply, transcend binaries, and cross physical boundaries; it is listening to and engaging with the many silences of the Atlantic’s past. This reconceptualization of history is reminiscent of the scholarship of Saidiya Hartman, Tiya Miles, and Michel-Rolph Trouillot, whom Joanna is deeply indebted to and inspired by in her own work.
Contact Joanna: