Profile

Brandon Flora Dunlevy (he/him) is a Ph.D. student in Princeton’s Department of Spanish & Portuguese. He comes from rural Brownsville, Pennsylvania, and he calls Appalachia his home. He holds an M.A. in Hispanic Studies and Latin American & Latinx Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, and an A.B. in Spanish & Portuguese and Latin American Studies from Princeton University (Alumni ’21). He is also a graduate of the Middlebury Summer Italian Institute. Brandon identifies as a first-generation low-income student and is a Princeton Presidential Fellow.

Brandon’s research challenges the erasure of historically overlooked archival voices of resistance and connects them across the oceanic worlds of Early Modernity. Drawing from both literary and historical materials, he draws microhistories of enslaved and free individuals within Spanish & Portuguese colonial territories, seeking to understand the function of identity and social groups. Brandon especially analyzes manuscripts from Transpacific exploration, including Iberian slavery and manumission trials, to map kinship networks and mutual aid between Indigenous, Asian, and African peoples subjected to colonial domination. 

Brandon is invested in the ideas of archival liberation and archival justice, especially through the application of contemporary archival theory, and making materials accessible through digital humanities. Brandon’s undergraduate thesis Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Clandestinity, Resistance & Perceptions of Indigenous People in Castile (2021) was awarded the Ricardo A. Piglia Prize and the Stanley J. Stein Prize.

Brandon further welcomes collaboration in Queer studies, Indigenous studies, African American studies, Medieval studies, translation, paleography, and digital humanities. Brandon values mentorship, especially connecting with other FGLI students and those interested in language or history. He enjoys all things nature and hiking, and he loves to spend any free time outside or cooking with peers.