Allison Curseen
Cooney Family Assistant Professor
Biography
Specializes in African American and 19th-century American literature and culture. Her particular interests include performance and performance studies, child studies, and theories of fugitivity and unruliness. Her current project examines nineteenth century depictions of childish physical movements in the context of the Fugitive Slave Act, antitruancy laws, and antebellum anxieties about unregulated movement, blackness, and national development. Her first book Minor Moves: Black Girls and Unruly Performance in Antebellum Narratives (UNC Press, May 2026) explores the subversive poetics and fugitive significations at play in antebellum Black women writers' depiction of black girls' physical movements. Professor Curseen's work can also be found in journals like African American Review and Theatre Survey .