Derby received her B.A. from Brown University in 1983,graduating with honors in Development Studies. From 1980 to 1981,she studied abroad at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania,focusing on African sociology,politics,and rural development. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. with distinction from the University of Chicago in 1997.
Career
At UCLA,she is affiliated with the Food Studies minor and the UC-Cuba Academic Initiative.[1] She advises students on topics including U.S. foreign policy in Latin America,race ideologies,authoritarian regimes,and oral history. She is also affiliated with the Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.[2]
Research
Derby's research engages with themes of translation and cultural interpretation,often exploring how foreign or unfamiliar worldviews are rendered intelligible across cultural boundaries. Influenced by Walter Benjamin’s ideas on translation,her work frequently centers on explaining the logics of marginalized or rural communities to broader audiences.[3]
The Dictator’s Seduction was awarded the Herbert Eugene Bolton-John J. Johnson Prize –Best Book in English by the Conference on Latin American History in 2010,[4] and co-won the Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Award from the Caribbean Studies Association.[5]
"Stealing the Citadel" received honorable mention from the Haiti and Dominican Republic section of the Latin American Studies Association in 2025.[8]
Books
Betes Noires:Sorcery as History in the Haitian-Dominican Borderlands. Duke University Press,2025.
Terreurs de frontière:Le massacre des Haïtiens en République dominicaine en 1937. Co-authored with Richard Turits;translated into French by Elise Finelz and Hélène Cardona;edited by Watson Denis. Port-au-Prince:Centre Challenges,2021. A collection of essays and survivor oral histories on the 1937 Haitian massacre. Cover art by Didier William.[9]
The Dominican Republic Reader. Co-edited with Eric Roorda and Raymundo González. Durham:Duke University Press,2014.
Activating the Past:Historical Memory in the Black Atlantic. Co-edited with Andrew Apter. Newcastle Upon Tyne:Cambridge Scholars Publishing,2010.[10]
The Dictator’s Seduction:Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo. Durham:Duke University Press,2009. Also published in Spanish by the Academy of History of the Dominican Republic,2016.[11]
La seducción del dictador:La política y la imaginación popular en la República Dominicana,translated by Rosmina Valdés-Cassá. Santo Domingo:Dominican Academy of History,2016. Foreword by Frank Moya Pons.[12]
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