Deborah Madsen is professor of American literature and culture at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, where her teaching and research concentrate on American ethnic literary and cultural studies; comparative multiculturalisms; literature and diaspora; and gender studies. She is currently writing a series of essays exploring the connections between critical multiculturalism, trauma theory and such issues as femininity and nationalism in the Anglophone Chinese Diaspora; literary voice and the ethics of literary representations of trauma; representations of violence in multi-ethnic literature and film; and colonialism, especially in relation to indigenous literature and culture. Her current book project is tentatively entitled, Gender / Nation / Diaspora: Disciplinary Regimes in Imagined Communities. Dr. Madsen is the author of many books and articles including Chinese American Literature, Understanding Contemporary Chicana Literature, and American Exceptionalism. Prior to her position in Geneva, she was professor of English at South Bank University in London. She holds a Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Sussex, United Kingdom, and an M.A. and B.A. from the University of Adelaide, Australia.