Nikky Suárez

Overview

Nikky Suárez is a PhD student in the Comparative Literature program at Cornell University. She is a Colombian-American woman who was raised in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As a Graduate Research Assistant for a course-redesign project, she and her team presented writing and investigative strategies at local conferences with an accompanying e-book, Strategies for Conducting Literary Research: Squeeze the Most Out of Your Research published Fall 2022. During the summer of 2022, she completed an independent directed study in the United Kingdom uncovering archival unpublished documents of women’s writings through prints, letters, and journals at the British Library. Before the global pandemic, she worked abroad in Abu Dhabi as an English professor to bilingual Arab students where she obtained her Professional Diploma in Teaching. 

Research Focus

Her doctoral research focus lies in bridging scholarship of indigenous Latin American and Arab transnational cultures and identities, emphasizing the voices of women of colour through decoloniality and reclamation of their voices, Suzette Henke’s “scriptotherapy” (writing as a healing mechanism) narratives, fragmented identities and restructuring the identities of Bedouin tribal women whose rights are threatened or denied, and border migration due to land dispossession and political tyranny. Exposed to a multicultural environment brought appreciation and relationship to marvellous stories about the traditions and histories of the countries and people she connected with.

Her doctoral research aims at deconstructing colonialism through the engagement of indigenous feminist transformative research. She is investigating how postcolonial theory makes its claim on the national origins and cultural indigeneity of Colombia, Palestine, Egypt, Chile and Saudi Arabia. The differences of colonial impact in Latin America and the Arab world provide an excellent source to identify commonalities between the cultures in particular: the racism separates color (black and white —the cleansing of the blood) and tribalism (familial ties and hierarchal power) as well as the role of women. 

She aims to uncover pre-Islamic narratives to understand more about postcolonial Muslim women’s lives and provide them with vocal agency in American culture and the Arab world. To do this, she analyses and examines rare manuscripts and texts regarding pre-Islamic histories of Arab women’s cultural heritage and gender identity. In addition, she incorporates the creative arts of music, sound, dance, and cultural performances to showcase the autobiographical and historical elements of feminist movements and bodily identities. 

The main research questions: 

1) How does the genre of female authored autobiography enable writers and artists to deconstruct colonial identities and express post-colonial reinventions and reservations? 

2) How do female writers use trauma, indigenous/tribal diaspora, and subjective ideologies, both physical and mental, to construct new identities? 

3) How can “scriptotherapy” and colonial interpretations enlighten readings of autobiography expressed through means of art and performance?

Awards and Honors

Dean’s Excellence Fellowship August 2023
Cornell Graduate School Office of Inclusion and Student Engagement

Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship Top Candidate December 15, 2022
Grant Title: Latinx and Arab Scriptotherapy Narratives Decolonize Femininity and Post-Colonial Trauma

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Frances R. Lefkowitz Endowed Scholarship Award August 2022
UCF English Department

Sheila B. Somerville Endowed Graduate Scholarship August 2021
UCF Women’s Club

Emerging Leaders Experiential Award April 2018 
NSU Office of Student Leadership and Civic Engagement

Professional Experience

Professional Conference Presentations 

1. Salaita, Steven and Ángela González-Echeverry, keynote speakers. 14^th Conference on East-West Cross-Cultural Relations: Egypt in the Western Imaginary and Other Luso-Hispanic-Eastern Exchanges, Department of English and Comparative Literature at American University of Cairo, Egypt. May 10–11, 2024. https://ignaciolopezcalvo.weebly.com/conference-east-west-cross-cultural-relations.html
2. “Feminist Decolonization Frameworks Mobilize Palestinian Indigenous Narratives: Lina Meruane’s Palestina en Pedazos Reframes Ancestral Trauma Healing.” Latin American and Caribbean Studies Conference ‘Resiliencia desde América Latina y el Caribe: Crisis, Resistance, and Adaptation’ Research Symposium, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. February 16–17, 2024. https://new.express.adobe.com/webpage/YrFAf8nj5JvlT
3. “Crossing Borders Through Autobiographical Identity: Adriana Páramo and Lina Meruane Heal Ancestral Traumas.” Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association: Seventy-Sixth Annual Convention, Denver, Colorado. October 12–14, 2023. 
4. Conference Organizer. Resilient Communities: Twelfth Annual English Symposium, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. March 23–24, 2023.
5. “The Global Woman’s Autobiographical Resistance: Decoloniality’s Reterritorialization in the ‘Legending’ of the Self.” Women of the World: Literature, Language, and Translation International Conference, Faculty of Education at Alexandria University, Egypt. March 9–11, 2023. https://doaa77omran.wixsite.com/women-of-the-world
6. “Re-imagining Neo-Slave Narratives’ “Autobiographical ‘I’” in Douglass and Jacobs,” Neo-slave Narratives Conference, University of Greenwich in collaboration with University of Liverpool, London, England, United Kingdom. June 16–17, 2022.
7. “The Rebirth of a Traumatized Body Through Scriptotherapy Narratives.” 4^th Annual Crossroads Humanities Student Conference, English Department at Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. March 26, 2022. 
8. Mauer, Barry and Venecek, John (with Heredia, Erika, Smeltz, Emily and Suárez, Nicole). “Humanities Research-Instruction for the Pandemic and the Future.” 2022 Florida Online Innovation Summit, UCF, Orlando, Florida. February 23–24, 2022. Live Recorded Presentation.

Publications

https://portfolium.com/NicoleS/portfolio

1. Bibliography Editor. The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Global Modernist Magazines: Volume 1: Latin America and the Caribbean, eds. Maria del Pilar Blanco, Louise Kane, and Andrew Thacker. Oxford UP, 2024.
2. Amanda Yeargin. “Women and Leadership Interview with Nikky Suárez.” Women First at UCF Project, UCF John Hitt C. Library, Special Collections and University Archives. October 20, 2022.
3. Mauer, B. and Venecek, J (with Heredia, Erika, Smeltz, Emily and Suárez, Nicole). Strategies for Conducting Literary Research: Squeeze the Most Out of Your Research. eBook ed. Pressbooks. July 20, 2022. https://pressbooks.online.ucf.edu/strategies2e/
4. “Big Apple Dreams, NSU Solutions: One Alumna’s Journey to PA Program Director,” co-authored with Kandee N. Griffith, M.ED., M.S., HRM. NSU Dr. Pallavi Patel College of Health Care Sciences Perspectives Magazine, Summer/Fall 2019. 7(2), 38–39. https://www.nova.edu/publications/hpd-perspectives-magazine/40/index.html
5. “Caring for Children with Cancer.” NSU College of Dental Medicine First Impressions Magazine Spring 2019. 6(1), 3. https://www.nova.edu/publications/lasting-impressions-spring2019/4/
6. “El Silbo Gomero―An Ancient Language Evolved.” Undergraduate Student Symposium, NSU, Davie/Fort Lauderdale, Florida. April 5, 2019.
7. The Third Culture Kid. [Video]. YouTube. 13:00. Writing for the Arts course, NSU, Davie/Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Retrieved from youtube.com/watch?v=sQFjr9qAaoc. December 8, 2016.

COML Courses - Fall 2024

• COML 1105 : FWS: Books with Big Ideas