Postcolonial, Race, Diaspora and Ethnic Studies

Postcolonial, Race, Diaspora and Ethnic Studies

Postcolonial, Race, Diaspora and Ethnic Studies

As teachers and scholars working in postcolonial studies, critical race studies, American multi-ethnic studies and minority literatures, we study the way that literary and cultural production is shaped by—and in turn shapes—discourses and practices around empire, anti-colonialism, indigeneity, diaspora, race and ethnicity. Our research and teaching follow multiple inquiries, including minority literature and human rights; histories and practices of anti-colonialism; Black poetics and environmental literature, Chicanx and Latinx literatures and movements; women of color feminism; decolonization and the Cold War; and more.

Our long-running Postcolonial, Race and Diaspora Studies Colloquium brings together faculty and graduate students across the New York City area for intellectual exchange in these fields. The colloquium strives to provide a forum for interested students from across English, Social and Cultural Analysis, Comparative Literature, French and other departments to present their work, interact with a range of peers and scholars, and foster conversations.

Faculty Research And Teaching Fields:

  • Toral Gajarawala: Postcolonial and subaltern studies; aesthetics, theories of the novel; narrative theory, realisms, modernisms, contemporary Anglophone and vernacular fiction.
  • Lenora Hanson: British and Italian Romantic poetry and prose; eighteenth and nineteenth-century life science and political economy; rhetoric and translation; materialism
  • Isabel Hofmeyr: Postcolonial studies; African literature; oral literature; Gandhian studies; Postcolonial history of the book and print culture; Indian Ocean studies
  • Elizabeth McHenry: African American literature and literary culture, Black print culture studies; African American intellectual history; archival studies; nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature
  • Tomás Urayoán Noel: U.S. Latin@ literatures and cultures; poetry and poetics of the Americas; media and performance studies; the Caribbean and its diasporas; modernisms and avant-gardes; translation studies; multi-ethnic New York City; creative writing
  • Crystal Parikh: Asian American literature and studies; Latinx/Chicanx literature and studies; feminist and critical race theory; human rights; postcolonial studies; twentieth-century and contemporary American literature
  • Sonya Posmentier: African American and Caribbean literature; Poetry and poetics; Ecological and environmental theory
  • Pacharee Sudhinaraset: Contemporary U.S. multiethnic literature and cultural studies; comparative racialization; women of color feminisms; gender and sexuality studies; visual culture; Asian American Literature
  • Sonali Thakkar: Postcolonial literature and theory; anticolonial thought and politics; comparative racialization and histories of antiracism; human rights; Jewish studies/Holocaust studies; theories of diaspora; gender and sexuality studies
  • Simon Trujillo: Chicana/o and Latina/o studies and literature; US multi-ethnic literature; comparative ethnic studies in the Americas; Borderlands theories and methodologies
  • Jini Kim Watson: Postcolonial literature and theory; decolonization and the global Cold War; spatial and urban theory; questions of sovereignty and political modernity; Marxism and critical theory; Asia-Pacific literature and cultural studies
  • Robert JC Young: Postcolonial literatures and cultures; the history of colonialism and anti-colonialism; cultural history of the 19th and 20th centuries; literary and cultural theory; language and translation

Current Graduate Students

  • Saronik Bosu: Literature and economics; South Asian studies; intellectual history; postcolonial environmental and medical humanities
  • Kathy Huot: Asian American and (South)East Asian studies; Anglophone, Postcolonial, and Diaspora Studies; Race and Gender Theory; Ecocriticism, Environmental Humanities, and Biopolitics; Science/Speculative Fiction; Translation Theory
  • Gabriella Johnson: African American literature; Black feminist theory and criticism; prison abolition
  • Yollotl Lopez: 20th/21st Century American ethnic literature; Latinx lit; undocumented immigrant narratives
  • Anh Nguyen: Postcolonial studies; global Cold War; world literature; questions of (under)development and modernity
  • Alexandria Ramos: U.S. multiethnic literatures and social movements; US Latinx and Asian American studies; borders, migration, and diasporas; women of color feminisms; decolonial thought
  • Rajgopal Saikumar: Early twentieth century literatures; law and political thought; postcolonial studies; global modernism; race; ethics, South Asian intellectual history
  • Ruby Wang: Twentieth- and twenty-first century Asian American and Asia-Pacific literature, film, and culture; postcolonial studies; the global Cold War; language and translation; memory and trauma studies

RECENT GRADUATE SEMINARS (in Postcolonial, Race, Diaspora Studies)

Fall 2021

  • ENGL-GA 2980 003 Intro to Advanced Literary Study: Language and Translation (Robert Young)
  • Engl-GA. 2916.001 Latinx Studies and Indigenous Politics (Simón Trujillo)

Spring 2021

  • Engl-GA 2838.001 The American Literatures of Transnational Feminism (Crystal Parikh)
  • Engl-GA 2839.001 19th Century African American (Elizabeth McHenry)
  • Engl-GA 2900.001 New Directions in Postcolonial Studies (Rajeswari Sunder Rajan)
  • Engl-GA 2917.001 Borders and Diasporas (Public Humanities course) (Simón Trujillo and T. Ura Noel)
  • Engl-GA 2916.001 Cultures of the Cold War (Patrick Deer and Jini Kim Watson)

Fall 2020

  • Engl-GA 2902.001 Black Poetry and Poetics (Sonya Posmentier)
  • Engl-GA 2916.001 Introduction to Ethnic Studies (Pacharee Sudhinaraset)
  • Engl-GA 2955.001 Chatter, Mumbling, Cant and Jargon: Languages of the Underground (Lenora Hanson and Fred Moten)
  • Engl-GA 2901.001, x-listed Comp. Lit.: Special Topics: Frantz Fanon (Mark Sanders)

Spring 2020

  • Engl-GA.1085.00, xlisted with Irish Studies: Black Irish Writing (John Waters)
  • Engl.GA. 2839.001 Race and Cosmopolitanism in American Literature from James to Baldwin (Gene Jarrett)
  • Engl.GA. 2902.001, xlisted with Comp Lit: Comparative Approaches to the Literatures of Africa, the Middle East, and the Global South (Mark Sanders)
  • Engl-GA. 2917.001 Human Rights and Cultural Politics (Crystal Parikh)
  • Engl-GA. 2917.002 Introduction to Latinx Literary and Cultural Studies (Simón Trujillo)
  • Engl-GA. 2957.001 Global Marxisms (Jini Kim Watson)

Fall 2019

  • Engl-GA. 2900.001 Under Water (Isabel Hofmeyr)
  • Engl-GA. 2901.001 Frantz Fanon and Decolonization (Robert Young)
  • Engl-GA. 2902.001 African American Performance Cultures: Dialectics of Embodiment and Textuality (Doug Jones)
  • Engl-GA. 2916.001 Feminist Urban Formations (Pacharee Sudinharaset)
  • Engl.GA. 2917.001 Latin@ Poetry and the Translingual Americas (T. Ura Noel)

Recent Faculty Books