Candace Ward

Candace Ward is a Professor of English at Florida State University. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Alabama (1996) and specializes in 18th-century British and Anglo-Caribbean literature, early women's fiction, and colonial cultural studies. Her research focuses on Creole novels, fever narratives, and the role of print culture in constructing Caribbean identity during the Age of Emancipation. She has authored seminal works like Crossing the Line (2017) and Desire and Disorder (2007), as well as edited critical editions such as Hamel, the Obeah Man (2010).

Her work bridges literary analysis with historical scholarship, examining how literature reflects and shapes cultural identities in colonial contexts. Recent projects explore the Caribbean Black press before 1850 and the intersections between disease, sensibility, and empire in Georgian-era texts. Ward has held prestigious fellowships, including a Fulbright at the University of the West Indies (2002-2003) and a 2023-2024 Linda H. Peterson Fellowship from the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals.

Publications span peer-reviewed journals like Victorian Periodicals Review and Journal of American Studies, with contributions to anthologies addressing Caribbean literary history and abolitionist discourse. Her interdisciplinary approach integrates postcolonial theory, archival research, and close textual analysis to illuminate marginalized voices in colonial and postcolonial contexts.