Frank Rodriguez

Professional Bio

Frank Rodriguez is a graduate student in Penn State’s MA/PhD program in English. He primarily studies twentieth- and twenty-first century hemispheric and global Anglophone literature, particularly the study of diasporic populations —both originating and residing in Latin America, the Caribbean, and West Africa— through a postcolonial lens that intersects with ecocriticism and labor studies.

Their research is particularly concerned with how diasporic communities confront conformity to their space, whether through cultural assimilation, adaptation, syncretism, or retention, as well as engaging in questions surrounding authenticity, citizenship, exile, statelessness, performance, and resource accessibility. Their past scholarship has examined depictions of race in Medieval England, methods of bridging linguistic gaps in standardized testing for ELL student populations, as well as analysis of Britain’s post-1900 South Asian diaspora through a culinary lens.

He also possesses a multitude of teaching experience in English, having previously taught traditional grade level, as well as schools for the disabled and non-English speaking immigrant populations. He is currently teaching within the Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) at Penn State.