Fish, Cheryl J.

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Fish, Cheryl J.

PERSONAL:

Born in Bronx, NY. Education: Studying toward Ph.D., at Graduate Center, City University of New York.

ADDRESSES:

Office—English Department, Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, 199 Chambers St., New York, NY 10007. E-mail—cfish@bmcc.cuny.edu.

CAREER:

Writer, poet, educator. Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York, NY, department of English, associate professor; previously taught at Hunter College, City University of New York.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fulbright Scholar grant, 2006-07.

WRITINGS:

Wing Span: Poems, Mellen Poetry Press (Lewiston, NY), 1992.

(Editor, with Farah J. Griffin) A Stranger in the Village: Two Centuries of African-American Travel Writing, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 1998.

Black and White Women's Travel Narratives: Antebellum Explorations, University Press of Florida (Gainesville, FL), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Cheryl J. Fish is a poet, writer, and educator. Born in the Bronx, New York, she has taught at several branches of the City University of New York, including Hunter College and the Borough of Manhattan Community College. In 2006, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant for the purpose of conducting research in environmental justice and North American studies at University of Tampere in Finland, as well as to present her own lectures on the same subject. Fish's primary area of research and academic interest revolves around the presentation and incorporation of environmental policies into works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and film. In an interview for the Borough of Manhattan Community College Web site, Fish explained the motivation behind the project: "What I really want to see is if literature and film really have the power to change us." In addition to her academic endeavors, Fish is the author and/or editor of several books, including Wing Span: Poems, A Stranger in the Village: Two Centuries of African-American Travel Writing, which she edited with Farah J. Griffin, and Black and White Women's Travel Narratives: Antebellum Explorations.

In Black and White Women's Travel Narratives, Fish takes a look at the travel narratives of Nancy Prince, Mary Seacole, and Margaret Fuller. Her intent is to focus on women who chronicled travels that they undertook for the purpose of social reform rather than for personal or leisurely pursuits. The project combines several of her interests, including investigating the feminist voice, the African American perspective, and general Women's Studies. She also addresses the issue that, in collections of travel narrative, the voice of African American women is frequently left out. With her book, she offers African American women the opportunity to share their voice in some way other than the traditional slave narrative that makes up the vast majority of contributions by black Southern women to anthologies of this sort. Fish addresses each woman's contribution separately, looking at how their ability to travel affected their individual lives, but also compares their voices and the experiences that serve as the foundations of their works. Lisa M. Logan, in a review for Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, commented that "far from tracing a single metaphor throughout disparate texts, Fish's work makes a good argument for why feminist scholars should embrace these texts today. At times, the loose and baggy feel of the book makes for slow going in dense territory, but the project is an important one." Daphne Lamothe, writing for Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, remarked that the book "succeeds in bringing attention to three works that merit prolonged and careful examination."