Margaret (Molly) Olsen specializes in Trans-Atlantic literatures of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, as well as Afro-Caribbean texts of the colonial and
contemporary periods. She believes that history is generally exclusive and incomplete,
and her central research focuses on textually recuperating discourses that have been
historically suppressed. Much of her research , for example, reveals the complex levels
at which peoples of African descent have participated in the writing of the New World.
Olsen is equally interested in how legacies of dominance inform the present reality of
many peoples across the globe. Most recently, she has found powerful tools of analysis in
the relationship between colonialism and ecocriticism as she explores discursive
struggles over land and nature.
EDUCATION: B.A., M.A., Ohio State University Ph.D., Tulane University
