Michael Reyes

About

I study Haitian efforts to imagine solidarity and community with the indigenous inhabitants of Hispaniola, the Taíno. Although few Taíno survived the Spanish invasion of Hispaniola that began in 1492, memory of the Taíno persisted in independent Haiti (1804), nourishing constitutional revisions, the nation’s early periodicals, the country’s first serious histories, collections of poetry, stories, countless plays, and even botanical texts. My research provides an account of how and why Haitians have made claim to the Taíno at particular moments of history, and what these claims mean for a predominantly Black diasporic people.

I also research the most effective ways to correct the written and spoken errors of students learning a second language.

I teach courses on the French language, French Caribbean literature, Black anticolonialism, translation, and Second Language Acquisition and Teaching

I am also affiliated with the Cultural Studies program.

website: drmichaelreyes.com

Courses

• FREN 150 - Français intermédiaire
• FREN 343* - L’histoire littéraire et culturelle de la Francophonie et du Québec
• FREN 351* - Écrits des mondes francophones 
• FREN 352* - Vers de nouveaux récits pour Haïti - Une introduction aux études haïtiennes
• FREN 450 - Travaux pratiques : Stylistique et traduction
• FREN 499 - Apprentissage et enseignement du français langue seconde

*Approved Option Courses in the Black Studies Minor

Publications

Book Chapters

• . “‘What Will I Be Called in the Future?’ Subverting Expectations of Taíno Tragedy in Edwidge Danticat’s Anacaona: Golden Flower.” In Caribbean Children’s Literature: Critical Approaches, Volume 2, edited by Betsy Nies and Melissa García Vega, University of Mississippi Press, 2023, 81-101. 

Refereed Journal Articles

• “What did Christopher Columbus once mean to Haiti? Émile Nau’s Histoire des Caciques d’Haïti and Irving’s Columbus in the nineteenth-century Atlantic World.” Atlantic Studies, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1080/14788810.2023.2277859
• “Haitian Indigeneity Before Africa: Commemorating Columbus and Dessalines in Henri Chauvet’s La fille du Kacik (1894).” Research in African Literatures, 50.4 (2020): 165-181, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/reseafrilite.50.4.10
• “Caribbean Ethnobotany Before Roumain: Eugène Nau’s Nineteenth-Century Contribution to an Understanding of the ‘Indian Flora of Haiti.’” Caribbean Quarterly, 63.4 (2017): 467-483, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00086495.2017.1392175
• “Nous l’avons gardée en nous, la tranche blanche: Rethinking the Time of the Haitian Flag in J. F. Brierre’s Le drapeau de demain (1931)” Journal of Haitian Studies, 23.1 (2017): 35-58, https://doi.org/10.1353/jhs.2017.0001

Publications Related to Teaching

• Cracking the Correction Code : Improving Student Writing in the Second Language Classroom and Beyond, Michael Reyes and Francesca Fiore, 2020. Self-Published Training Guide, open access digital version in QSpace (ISBN: 978-1-55339-626-0). http://hdl.handle.net/1974/28058
• Cracking the Correction Code : A Workbook for Improving Student Writing in the Second Language Classroom and Beyond, Michael Reyes and Francesca Fiore, 2020. Self-Published Workbook, open access digital version in QSpace (ISBN: 978-1-55339-6277). 
  http://hdl.handle.net/1974/28059
• Pourrais-tu répéter ? Guide sur la rétroaction corrective à l’oral dans les cours de langue et ailleurs, Michael Reyes, 2019. Self-Published Training Guide, open access digital version in QSpace. (ISBN: 978-1-55339-623-9) 
  http://hdl.handle.net/1974/27490
• Could You Repeat that? A Brief Guide to Oral Corrective Feedback in the Language Learning Classroom and Beyond, Michael Reyes, 2019. Self-Published Training Guide, open access digital version in QSpace. (ISBN: 978-1-55339-6215).
  http://hdl.handle.net/1974/26244

Grants

• 2020 “New Narratives for Haiti and Haitians in Chile,” ELAP Faculty Mobility Grant, Global Affairs Canada, ($5,600)
• 2019 “Cracking the Correction Code: How Should We Correct Mistakes in the Written Work of Foreign Language Learners?” Educational Research Grant, Center for Teaching and Learning, Queen’s University ($4,500).
• 2018 “The Fruits of Colonial Botany: How Haitians used Plants to Create an ‘Indigenous’ Identity,” SSHRC Institutional Grant, Queen’s University ($5,000). 
• 2018 “How should we correct mistakes in the speech of foreign language learners?  Assessing the training of Undergraduate Teaching Assistants in effective feedback strategies,” Educational Research Grant, Center for Teaching and Learning, Queen’s University ($3,000)