Ashley Bernardo
 | PhD CandidateAmerican Literary StudiesResearch AreaAfrican American Literature; Early American Literature and the long 19th Century; Afrofuturism; The novel; genre studies; Black women writersContact InformationEmail: abernardo@unm.edu |
BiographyAshley Bernardo is an ABD Ph.D. candidate at the University of New Mexico where she studies African American Literature with a focus on the long 19th-century and Black women’s writing. Her dissertation, ““Traversing Trails of Truth: Literary testimony by nineteenth-century Black women writers” examines the specific rhetorical and literary strategies of Black women writers as they both spoke truth to power and testified on their lived experiences in a racialized, gendered, and classed world. Additionally, Ashley studies Afrofuturist theories and their applicability in pedagogical practices and in her research to explore transhistorical signification in the works of 19th century African American and Black authors. In addition to her studies, Ashley teaches Composition as Instructor of Record for the Core Writing Program in the English Department. She has also taught Introduction to Literature, Analysis of Literature, American Literature I, and African American Literature I. Ashley was awarded the Outstanding Core Writing Instructor in 2025 from the English Department, and has been an active member of United Graduate Workers of UNM since 2023. Ashley received her B.A in English (2015), B.S. in English (2015), and her M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction (2016) at the University of Connecticut. | |
