Alex Diaz-Hui

1032 Wood St Unit #401

Philadelphia, PA 19107
adiazhui@princeton.edu  503.593.1513

RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS:

Sound Studies, 20th and 21st c. Caribbean and American Literatures, Latine and Latin American
Studies, Poetics, Performance Theory, Ethnomusicology, Music Technology and Production

EDUCATION:
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ Expected June 2025
Doctor of Philosophy, English
Certificate in Latin American Studies
Dissertation: Ensembles in Dissonance: Collective Voice and Abandonment Since 1975
Committee: Christina León (Duke, Literature), Jeff Dolven (Princeton, English), Bill Gleason
(Princeton, English) Gavin Steingo (Princeton, Music), Ren Ellis Neyra (Wesleyan, English
and African American Studies)

Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR June 2020

Master of Arts, English
Literature and Culture emphasis
Thesis: “‘Otherwise I hear riffs and drones:’ Sound and Decoloniality in Contemporary Latinx
Poetics”
Advisor: Iyunolu Osagie, (School of Writing, Literature, and Film)

Portland State University, Portland, OR

Bachelor of Arts, English, summa cum laude, June 2016
Minor in Secondary Education

PRESENTATIONS:
Chair, “Performing Latinidad,” Northeast Modern Language Association conference, March 6-9
2025 (Upcoming)

“Pedro Pietri (And Nobody Else): Imagined Collaborations in a Diasporic New York,” Lived
Experiences conference, Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings at Vrije Universiteit
Brussel, Brussels, Belgium, June 7-8, 2024

“‘Making Words, Making Sounds, Making Songs:’ Sonic Change in Afro-Cuban Cosmologies,”
Listening Historically working group at Modern Language Association conference, January 4-7,
2024

Participant, Graduate 20th Century Workshop of the Department of English at Princeton, October
2023

Participant, Graduate Workshop for the Program of Latin American Studies at Princeton, May
2023
Moderator, “Tuning into the Caribbean: Sonic Practices and Technologies,” Caribbean Studies
Speaker Series at Princeton University, September 22, 2022

“The Changing Same/El Mismo Cambiante: Afrocubanisms in Music and Cosmologies.” Latinx
Studies Association, Notre Dame, IN, July 11-14, 2022

“Racializations of Latin American and Latinx Musicians in the Twenty First Century” Popular
Culture Association Conference, June 2-5, 2021

“‘Mocking Capitalism in a Sinking World:’ Ecocriticism in Popular Music” Environmental Arts

and Humanities Graduate Conference, Corvallis, OR, May 28, 2020

“Linguistic Clowning and the Decolonial Poetics of Mónica de la Torre’s Public Domain,” 117th
Annual Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association conference, San Diego, November
14-17, 2019

Chair, Spring 2019 MA in English Symposium, Corvallis, OR, May 15, 2019

“‘English is a Foreign Anguish:’ Race and Language in the Avant-Garde,” 50th Annual Northeast
Modern Language Association conference, Washington D.C., March 21-24, 2019

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:
Assistant in Instruction, Children’s Literature, Department of English, Princeton
University (Spring 2024)
I led multiple precept sections for this lecture course. We covered around 200 years of children’s
writing from Britain and the United States. In my precepts, I taught students how close reading
functions through both textual and cultural analysis. As a class for majors and non-majors alike, I
encourage my students to consider the multiple modalities of reading that exist beyond the
classroom itself. I gave a lecture on breakbeat writing, Nuyorican and slam poetry, and Afro-
Latinidad in the context of Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X.

Assistant in Instruction, American Television, Department of English, Princeton University

(Spring 2023)
I served as one of the preceptors in the inaugural session of American Television in the English
department. I led two precept sections, where I covered close reading, media analysis, and skills
for analytical writing. I also gave a guest lecture on how approaches from sound studies can help
us view and listen to racial dynamics in the television programs like Empire and Buckwild.

Graduate Teaching Assistant, School of Writing, Literature, and Film at Oregon State
University (2018-2020)
I was the instructor of record for various courses in English Composition, including first-year
writing and other courses in rhetoric and argumentation. I taught two sections of a writing class I
designed titled “Persons, Objects, and Things.” I also led a discussion section for introduction to
literature courses. While leading these discussion sections, I lectured on representations of
history and colonialism in Ray Bradbury’s “—And the Moon Be Still as Bright,” poetics and
Orientalism, poetry in social movements, race and racism in Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself,
and the sound, form, and politics of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.”

Graduate Teaching Assistant, Summer Workshop on Frontiers in Humanistic Studies,

hosted by Oregon State University and Beijing Normal University (Summer 2019)
I led a discussion section for undergraduate students visiting Oregon State from Beijing Normal
University who attended a study abroad program on English and American literature and culture
at Oregon State University. Students in the program read a variety of texts, including poetry,
short stories, and graphic novels. The final assignment for the course was a critical essay in
English that I was responsible for grading.

Peer Mentor, Department of University Studies at Portland State University, 2016-2017

I led discussion sections for various sophomore inquiry courses, which were part of the
University Studies program at Portland State University. These courses covered a variety of
topics, including design thinking, privacy and technology, and community studies. These
discussion sections included issues relevant to the course and academic writing.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE:
Transcriber and English Proofreader, Translating Mesoamerica Project, July 2023-
February 2024
I have transcribed different legal and administrative documents in Nahuatl from the 16 th and 17th
centuries and proofread English translations. The project works with translators in Mexico in the
hopes of making these documents widely accessible to Spanish, English, and Nahua speaking
audiences.

Convener, Inter-University Writing Group, 2023-Present

I help to facilitate dialogue between Ph.D. candidates at Princeton, the University of Oregon,
Purdue, and Notre Dame. We meet to discuss works in progress, primarily dissertation chapters
or articles. I find members who are able to present work, pair them with a respondent, and
schedule Zoom meetings. The group ranges in periods, fields, and disciplines and respondents
are often chosen outside one’s focus so they can hear how

Co-Chair, Americanist Colloquium, Department of English, 2021-22 (Asst.) 2022-23 (Co-

Chair)
Hosted within the English department, I participated in reading groups on Julio Cortázar’s
experimental novel Rayuela (Hopscotch) and invited scholars and speakers to give talks at
Princeton. This includes the techno producer and cultural theorist DeForrest Brown, Jr. and
performance studies scholar Barbara Browning. Responsibilities included setting and
maintaining a budget, writing proposals, booking event spaces, and helping visitors.

Convener, Radical Readers Research Cluster—Center for the Humanities at Oregon State
University, Corvallis, OR, 2019-2020
I co-organized and convened a working group for graduate students of color from the English
and Creative Writing programs in the School of Writing, Literature, and Film. We read poetry by
writers of color and worked to address concerns surrounding race and ethnicity at Oregon State.
Fiction Submissions Reader, 45th Parallel Literary Magazine—School of Writing,
Literature, and Film at Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 2019-2020
I read fiction submissions for the 2020 issue of the 45th Parallel Literary Magazine, organized by
Creative Writing and English students in the School of Writing, Literature and Film.

Consultant for Curriculum, Oregon Writing Project/Clackamas High School, Portland,

OR, 2018
I collaborated with English Language Arts teachers at Clackamas High School in Portland, OR
who developed a unit called “From Harlem to Hip-Hop.” I gave specific guidance on
performance poetry and contemporary writing inspired by hip hop and rap culture.

AWARDS RECEIVED:
Graduate Student Conference Travel Fund, Effron Center for the Study of the Americas, 2024
Dissertation Research Fund, Department of African American Studies at Princeton, 2023
President’s Fellowship, Princeton University, 2020-2021
Research Cluster Grant, Center for the Humanities at Oregon State University, 2019-2020
Graduate Student Travel Award, Center for the Humanities at Oregon State University, 2019
President’s Diversity Mini-Grant, Portland State University, 2017-2018
Teacher Pathways Scholarship, Portland State University, 2016
Jennette Drew Scholarship, Portland State University, 2016
Creating Future Scholars Scholarship, Portland State University, 2015

LANGUAGES:
English—Native language
Spanish—Heritage speaker
French—Basic translation and reading