Barbara M. Hoffmann, PhD
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Dr. Barbara M. Hoffmann is a researcher and teacher of global Anglophone literature, postcolonial theory and settler colonial literature, Irish literature, Indigenous writing and culture, and queer theory and gender studies.
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As President of the American Association of Australasian Literary Studies (AAALS), Dr. Hoffmann is actively involved in the scholarly community and works to elevate and promote Australasian literature in the academy. In this role, she convenes meetings of the executive officers, board, and general membership; liaises with other organizations in the promotion and support of Australian studies (including the Australian embassy); promotes and oversees the AAALS Annual Creative Writing competitions; and helps organize the AAALS annual conference. In her former role as vice president, she organized, convened, and chaired the AAALS guaranteed panel at MLA from 2021-2024. As President, she continues to succeed in the goal of championing and promoting the work of graduate students and underemployed academics.
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Her current book project considers experiences of Irish convicts transported to Australia in the 19th century, including poems, journals, and on-board newspapers kept by those convicts. She received a Summer Research Fellowship to study at the Mitchell Library, part of the State Library of New South Wales, Australia, performing archival research on the writings kept by convicts and other transportees to Australia. Using an oceanic studies lens, as well as theories of nationalism and national identity, she considered contemporary novels about Irish convicts in colonial Australia to understand the ways that global movements affect and create national identity.
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Dr. Hoffmann's research considers issues of migration, exile, and national identity. She recently guest edited a special section of the journal Antipodes on Greek-Australian author Christos Tsiolkas. She has a forthcoming essays on the presence of Australia in the works of James Joyce in the James Joyce Quarterly and Joyce Studies Annual, as well as a chapter on teaching Joyce to high school students. A future book project looks at representations of Australia in the works of James Joyce and other modernist writers as indicators of the effects of exile, otherness, migration, and return.
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With over 20 years of teaching experience across secondary and higher education in diverse learning communities from public high schools to private universities, Dr. Hoffmann is a dedicated educator. Much of her teaching work focuses on amplifying marginalized voices, including and especially Aboriginal Australians and other indigenous peoples, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. In Spring 2025, she will teach an original class—the first of its kind at the University of Miami—on the history and culture of DRAG. Addressing issues of social power, resistance, and identity, the class will be broad in scope, allowing students to understand the history of gender nonconformity across time and cultures, while connecting to the local community of drag artists.
Extending from her interdisciplinary interests in literature, social power, and cultural history, Dr. Hoffmann is committed to original curriculum development and course design. Through the Da Vinci Honors Program at the University of Miami, she designed a class on the emerging field of Oceanic Studies, considering the lived experiences of ordinary seamen on 19th century merchant ships, of enslaved peoples on the middle passage, and of Cuban refugees traversing the Florida Straits on makeshift rafts. She also designed a composition class specifically for architecture students, which she has run since 2023.
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Dr. Hoffmann’s understanding of the global movements about which she writes is buttressed by her research background in politics, including a BA in Political Science and a Master of Public Policy, as well as her experience doing policy research for a both non-profit and government entities. Her commitment to social justice in the classroom is grounded in her political research, including her work for the Federal Minster of Education of Australia as well as her extensive research on the relationship between socioeconomic status, learning pathways, and school success.
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Research Interests: Global Anglophone Literature; Indigenous Writing and Culture; Postcolonial Theory and Settler Colonialism; Migration Studies; Oceanic Studies; Queer Theory and Gender Studies; James Joyce; Contemporary Australian writing; Convict Transportation.