About Kendall Dinniene

Kendall is an avid reader, writer, and poet. She enjoys making espresso and hanging out with her perfect cat, Claude. This summer, Kendall is a fellow with the LA Review of Books Summer Publishing Workshop and is attending Duke University's Black Feminist Theory Summer Institute.

Kendall Dinniene is a PhD candidate in English at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Their dissertation excavates how American cultural production complicates and transforms dominant notions of fatness, revealing how these notions are intertwined with and produce ideas about race as well as gender, sexuality, health, and national identity. Their work relies upon queer theory, Black feminist theory, and fat studies scholarship alongside literary criticism to argue that how we understand fatness is crucial to the way we understand (and make) our world. Kendall's scholarship has appeared in Fat Studies: A Journal of Body Weight and Society and is forthcoming in Ethnic Studies Review.

Kendall's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Kendall:

Jess Whatcott, "Menace to the Future: A Disability and Queer History of Carceral Eugenics" (Duke UP, 2024)

September 7, 2024

Menace to the Future

Jess Whatcott
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

In Menace to the Future: A Disability and Queer History of Carceral Eugenics (Duke UP, 2024), Jess Whatcott traces the link between US disability inst…

Jerry Rafiki Jenkins, "Anti-Blackness and Human Monstrosity in Black American Horror Fiction" (Ohio State UP, 2024)

June 25, 2024

Anti-Blackness and Human Monstrosity in Black American Horror Fiction

Jerry Rafiki Jenkins
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

In Anti-Blackness and Human Monstrosity in Black American Horror Fiction (Ohio State UP, 2024), Jerry Rafiki Jenkins examines four types of human mons…

Emma Copley Eisenberg, "Housemates" (Hogarth, 2024)

June 22, 2024

Housemates

Emma Copley Eisenberg
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

Today I talked to Emma Copley Eisenberg's novel Housemates (Hogarth, 2024). After Bernie’s former photography professor, the renowned yet tarnished D…

Gretchen Felker-Martin, "Cuckoo" (Tor Nightfire, 2024)

May 5, 2024

Cuckoo

Gretchen Felker-Martin
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

Today I talked to Gretchen Felker-Martin about Cuckoo (Tor Nightfire, 2024). From Gretchen Felker-Martin, the acclaimed author of Manhunt, comes a vi…

Sara B. Franklin, "The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America" (Atria, 2024)

May 3, 2024

The Editor

Sara B. Franklin
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

The woman behind some of the most important authors of the 20th century—including Julia Child, Anne Frank, Edna Lewis, John Updike, and Sylvia Plath—f…

Stephanie Li, "Ugly White People: Writing Whiteness in Contemporary America" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

March 20, 2024

Ugly White People

Stephanie Li
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

White Americans are confronting their whiteness more than ever before, with political and social shifts ushering in a newfound racial awareness. And w…

Jennifer Maclure, "The Feeling of Letting Die: Necroeconomics and Victorian Fiction" (Ohio State UP, 2023)

November 25, 2023

The Feeling of Letting Die

Jennifer Maclure
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

In The Feeling of Letting Die: Necroeconomics and Victorian Fiction (Ohio State UP, 2023), Jennifer MacLure explores how Victorian novels depict the f…

Asad L. Asad, "Engage and Evade: How Latino Immigrant Families Manage Surveillance in Everyday Life" (Princeton UP, 2023)

August 27, 2023

Engage and Evade

Asad L. Asad
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

Because immigration is such a recurring-and divisive-topic in the United States, it is easy to assume that we understand what it means for an immigran…

Kelly Ross, "Slavery, Surveillance and Genre in Antebellum United States Literature" (Oxford UP, 2022)

July 16, 2023

Slavery, Surveillance and Genre in Antebellum United States Literature

Kelly Ross
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

Slavery, Surveillance and Genre in Antebellum United States Literature (Oxford UP, 2022) argues for the existence of deep, often unexamined, interconn…

Kathryn Olivarius, "Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom" (Harvard UP, 2022)

June 10, 2023

Necropolis

Kathryn Olivarius
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene
Listen:

Disease is thought to be a great leveler of humanity, but in antebellum New Orleans acquiring immunity from the scourge of yellow fever magnified the …

Susan Stinson, "Martha Moody" (Small Beer Press, 2020)

May 28, 2023

Martha Moody

Susan Stinson
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

Winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award in Fiction, Susan Stinson's Martha Moody (Small Beer Press, 2020) is a speculative western that follows Amanda, …

Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, "Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia" (Fordham UP, 2022)

May 8, 2023

Between Heaven and Russia

Sarah Riccardi-Swartz
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

How is religious conversion transforming American democracy? In one corner of Appalachia, a group of American citizens has embraced the Russian Orthod…

Jack Parlett, "Fire Island" (Hanover Square Press, 2022)

May 7, 2023

Fire Island

Jack Parlett
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

A groundbreaking account of New York's Fire Island, chronicling its influence on art, literature, culture and queer liberation over the past century F…

Brad Kelly, "House of Sleep" (2021)

April 19, 2023

House of Sleep

Brad Kelly
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

Today I talked to Brad Kelly about his novel House of Sleep (2021). A cerebral PsyFi thriller that will break your heart and then set it free. Think …

Foluke Adebisi, "Decolonisation and Legal Knowledge: Reflections on Power and Possibility" (Bristol UP, 2023)

April 2, 2023

Decolonisation and Legal Knowledge

Foluke Adebisi
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

Folúkẹ́ Adébísí’s Decolonisation and Legal Knowledge: Reflections on Power and Possibility (Bristol UP, 2023) details the ways in which the law is hea…

Leigh Goodmark, "Imperfect Victims: Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition Feminism" (U California Press, 2023)

March 22, 2023

Imperfect Victims

Leigh Goodmark
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

Leigh Goodmark’s new book, Imperfect Victims: Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition Feminism (U California Press, 2023), uses the storie…

Juliana Lamy, "You Were Watching from the Sand" (Red Hen Press, 2023)

March 14, 2023

You Were Watching from the Sand

Juliana Lamy
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

Playful, kinetic, and devastating in turn, You Were Watching from the Sand (Red Hen Press, 2023) is a collection in which Haitian men, women, and chil…