Undergraduate Research and Creativity Alumni Profiles 

Tommy Poehnelt, B.A. '11

Instrumental Music Teacher, Southtowns Catholic School
Major(s): English, Public Communications

What research or work have you done since graduating from Buffalo State?

Completed my M.A. in English and American literature at New York University. I am now working on my doctoral dissertation at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass Amherst). My academic fields are Asian American literature, critical race theory, trauma studies, and postcolonialism. I have presented at conferences at SUNY Stony Brook (an examination of the weaponization of language in Junot Diaz's short story collection, Drown), UMass Amherst (roots of identity in GB Tran's graphic memoir, Vietnamerica), and the University of Florida (understanding the ghosts of trauma in Belle Yang's graphic memoir, Forget Sorrow).

Can you translate your work for the general public?

The central focus of my dissertation is on Asian American texts, and how they can be read as "oathwriting," or ways to extract the ghosts of unspeakable traumas so that those affected are no longer haunted. I then take this interpretation of oathwriting and apply it to other texts by Black, Native American, and Latinx artists. Basically, these traumas caused by U.S. imperialism, racism, othering, and other violences, sometimes are unresolved because either the language is insufficient to talk about them, or there is no audience to listen. They then haunt the afflicted, and are passed down generationally. In order to communicate these traumas, then, either a new language or patois has to be developed, or the stories that are factual have to masquerade as fiction. Oathwriting, which is derived from the etymology of "exorcise," sees and understands the texts as such, creating a space for the ghost to depart and the person/people to heal.

Why did you decide to get involved in undergraduate research?

It was an excellent opportunity to delve deeper into an aspect of literature and a personal interest that was not available in any particular class.

How did your undergraduate research experience influence your career path?

It has helped me to better analyze literature and theory; exposed me to many scholars in Asian American literary criticism and postcolonial studies; and prepared me for the work I would accomplish in graduate school as well.

Describe the research you did and if you presented it at any professional conference, juried art exhibit, or other off-campus location.

I examined Chang Rae Lee’s novel Native Speaker, particularly the main character Henry Park's struggle to find his identity amongst his immigrant parents, Anglo-American wife and their son. This was analyzed primarily through the scope of Gloria Anzaldúa's borderland theory incorporating the American culture with a foreign one to find a sense of belonging that cheats neither.

Undergraduate Research Mentor: Dr. Lorna Perez