Dr. Wendy McBurney

Dr. Wendy McBurney is a Caribbean-born scholar, educator, and writer who completed her studies in the United States, with a focus on Hispanic studies, language, literature, and film.  She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies from Kennesaw State University in Georgia.  She received a Master of Arts degree in Spanish from Bowling Green State University, with a specialization in Mexican and Latin American Films.  She completed her Doctoral degree in Romance Languages at the University of Missouri in Columbia in 2016.  Her dissertation topic focused on the un-silencing of the black female voice, with a treatment that explored the intersections of race, gender, and identity in the literary narratives of Equatorial Guinea and Afro-Costa Rican literary traditions of the twentieth century.

Her career has been predominantly in the field of education at various levels, ranging from an elementary school teacher in Trinidad to a university professor in the United States.  She was a faculty member in the Department of World Languages at both Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta and Howard University in Washington, DC.  Over the last four years, she worked as a Spanish Language teacher in the public school systems in Georgia. As a research scholar, she continues to present her articles at conferences and to publish in various national and international journals.  Her recent book reviews, poems, and articles have appeared in the Afro-Hispanic Review, the online journal “Breathe,” as well as Network Memita of Unipapress.  She has also contributed a book chapter to Rhone Fraser’s book on Tony Martin, Making Race First 2024.   She will be a virtual panelist at the 2025 CARIFESTA  XV Symposia in Barbados, presenting a paper entitled, “Voicing the Silenced: Afro-Hispanic Literature, Black Women’s Resistance, and Digital Innovation.”

Dr. McBurney is an avid theatre enthusiast and patron of both plastic and performing arts.  She has performed in various theatrical productions in Trinidad and at Bowling Green University.  She also enjoys traveling in the Diaspora, learning languages, and carrying out research projects on the arts and diverse cultural topics.  She likes dancing and collecting art pieces from the African Diaspora.