Christopher De Shield Email & Phone Number

As Assistant Professor of English in the Department of Languages and Literature, at the University of Belize, I teach Literature and Writing classes. My qualifications include a BA in English and Biology (double major), which I earned from Goshen College, in the United States, before returning to Belize and teaching briefly, in 2007, as adjunct lecturer in Environmental Conservation and Development at UB. After leaving for Scotland, where I gained an MSc (with distinction) in Literature and Transatlanticism from the University of Edinburgh, I went on to work as Part-time Academic at Open University Malaysia, and concurrently to study for PhD in English Literature at the University of Malaya, in Kuala Lumpur, which I gained in 2016.My doctoral thesis centres on a body of theory commonly described as “postcolonial ecocriticism” and its utility for comparing diverse literatures. My research interests lie in the intersection of postcolonial literature (particularly fiction) and the environment (particularly discourses of indigeneity and naturalness). 
Recent academic publications include book chapters in Cosmopolitan Asia: Littoral Epistemologies of the Global South (Routledge, 2016), and Ecocriticism of the Global South (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) as well as journal articles in Postcolonial Text and Belizean Studies.Besides research and teaching, I serve UB in various academic and administrative capacities, including Writing Tutor in the Writing Centre, and as an editor of the Department of Languages & Literature’s forthcoming literary journal . Outside of UB, I currently serve as Secretary of the St. George’s Caye Village Council, as board member of the Pallotti School of Music, and as a peer reviewer for the Oxford journal Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment (ISLE). 

I enjoy my wife and kids, listening to good music (especially jazz and funk), reading widely, and playing the double bass.