CV
PROFESSIONAL HISTORY
Associate Professor, Department of English, University of California-Berkeley, 2020—Present
Co-Director, Program in Critical Theory, UC-Berkeley
Affiliated Faculty:
LGBTQ Citizenship Cluster, Othering and Belonging Institute
Department of Gender and Women’s Studies; Asian American Research Center; Department of South and South East Asian Studies; Center for Race and Gender; Institute for South Asia Studies (Executive Committee, Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies); Program in Folklore.
Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of California-Berkeley, 2014—2020
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Dickinson College, 2011—2014
Artemis A.W. and Martha Joukowsky Postdoctoral Fellow, Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, Brown University, 2011-2012
EDUCATION
Ph.D., English Literature, University of Pennsylvania.
B.A., Highest Honors in English Literature and International Relations, Mount Holyoke College.
PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
Winner of Helen Tartar First Book Subvention Prize, American Comparative Literature Association, 2017.
Reviewed in South Asian Review, The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, H-Net, EPW
syndicate.network Book Forum featuring Nasia Anam, Durba Ghosh,
Parama Roy, Neelofer Qadir, Neilesh Bose, & Cristin McKnight Sethi
(Forthcoming reviews in Comparative Literature, Interventions, book forum in Syndicate.network)
Fascination (in progress)
REFEREED ARTICLES
“Queering the Womb: Surrogacy and the Economics of Reproductive Feeling.” Queer Kinship: Erotic Affinities and the Politics of Belonging, ed. Elizabeth Freeman and Tyler Bradway. Duke University Press, 2022.
“Uncertainty as Ethics.” Journal of American Studies. (55:3, 2021).
“Terrorist Still-Life.” Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. (21.6: 2019).
“Tough Titties: Commodity Spiritualism & The New Mother Goddess.” (under review)
“A Political Theory of the Séance.” (under review)
EDITED JOURNAL ISSUES
“Anticolonialism as Theory,” co-edited with Yogita Goyal, Representations. (Spring 2023)
“Terrorist, Refugee, Casualty: Extrajudicial Bodies of the New Empires.” Interventions. (21.6: 2019).
REVIEW ESSAYS
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
“Indian Spirituality at the Heart of Early America.” TedX Berkeley, April 2022.
“Too Privileged to Protest?,” Letters to the Editor, The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 21 2017.
SELECTED INVITED TALKS
“Futuring Critical Theory: Critical Social Research in Prospect,” Futuring Critical Theory: Institute for Social Research at 100, Institut für Sozialforschung, Frankfurt, September 2023.
“Deep Fakes: Cult Gurus, Fictional Nations, and the Scam of the Century,” Keynote, Comparative Literature Honors Symposium, UC-Berkeley, April 2023.
“Algorithm to Krishna Consciousness,” Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University, February 2023.
“An Occult Method,” University of Pittsburgh, February 2023.
“Psychoanalysis and Race: Revisiting Spillers, Freud, and Our Mothers.” Psychosocial Foundation, November 2022.
“Demopolitics and Reproductive Utopias.” Biohacking Reproduction Seminar Series, Centre for Gender Studies, Cambridge University, November 2022.
Keynote Commencement Address, UC-Berkeley Winter Commencement, 2022.
“At Home in What World?,” Mahindra Center for the Humanities, Harvard University, April 2022.
“From the Postcolonial to the Transnational: Where are Studies of Race and Empire?” Keynote & Masterclass, School of Writing, Literature, and Film, Oregon State University, May 2021.
“Comparative Literature... Now?” Keynote, Comparative Literature Colloquium, Fordham University, April 2021.
“From the Throat: Women’s Textile Work & Memories of Disaster in Bangladesh,” Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, November 2020.
“What’s Empire Got to Do with It?” Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Stanford University, October 2020.
“The Orange People: Fashion & Rajneeshi Cult Culture,” Stanford Humanities Center, March 2020.
“An Empire of Touch,” Departments of English and Women Gender & Sexuality Studies, and the C19 Anglophone Collective, University of Southern California, April 2020. [Postponed]
“Thoughts on the Khoabnama,” Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University, April 2020. [Postponed]
“Contingency,” Political Concepts Conference, Brown University, December 2019.
“An Empire of Touch,” Center for Contemporary South Asia, Brown University, May 2019.
“Conjuring Conspiracy,” Center for Race and Gender, UC Berkeley, September 2018.
“Empire’s Vampire,” On the Subject of Ethnonationalisms Conference, UC Berkeley, April 2018.
“Dropped Stitches,” Institute for the Humanities and Global Cultures (IHGC-UVA), University of Virginia, November 2017.
“The Matter of an Ivory Statuette,” Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Mumbai, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, July 2015.
“The Touch and Feel of Fetish: On Fabrics of National Life,” BRAC University, Department of Social Science and Economics, Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 2015.
“Shared Breath, Shared Blood: Conspiring Against British Vampirism in the New American Empire,” University of Washington, South Asia Center and the Departments of History, English, and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, May 2015.
“Easter Risings: The Irish Insurrection in India,” Fund for Irish Studies, Princeton University, April 2015.
“Representations of Poverty,” Roundtable Discussion, “Berkeley On the Same Page: Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” UC-Berkeley, September 2015.
“Affective Bodies: Performative Cultures and Aesthetic Practice,” Conversation and Roundtable with visual artist Pushpamala N in conjunction with San Jose Museum of Art, UC-Berkeley, April 2015. (invited respondent)
“Activism, Journalism, Life, and Literature: Sandip Roy and South Asian Queer Diaspora,” Panelist, Institute for South Asia Studies, UC-Berkeley, February 2015. (invited respondent)
“Fruits of the Loom,” BRAC University, Department of English, Dhaka, Bangladesh, December 2014.
“Afterlives of Pritilata Waddedar,” Naripokkho, Dhaka, Bangladesh, December 2013.
“The Touch and Feel of Fetish: On Fabrics of National Life,” University of Albany, SUNY, Department of English, November 2013.
“The Twentieth-Century Market,” Modernism and Twentieth Century Group, University of Pennsylvania, September 2013.
“Fabric and Feces: Textures and Textiles of Anticolonialism,” Materialism and The Colony, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, May 2013.
“The Terrorist Still Life,” First Exposure Symposium, Northeastern University, April 2013.
“Engaging Theory on the Move,” Theory on the Move: Three Decades of Critical Feminist Thinking, A Scholarly Conference in Celebration of the Pembroke Center’s 30th Anniversary, Brown University, Providence, RI, November 2011.
SELECTED CONFERENCE AND OTHER PRESENTATIONS
“The Persistence of Comparative Literary Studies,” invited speaker, Modern Language Association Annual Meeting, January 2021.
“Self/Ish/Less,” MLA: Modern Language Association Annual Meeting, January 2020.
“Namaste Bitches: The Aesthetics and Economics of Mass Market Yoga Spirituality,” ASAP: Association for Study of the Arts of the Present Annual Meeting, October 2019.
“Queering the Womb,” American Studies Association Annual Conference, November 2019.
“Thoughts on a Crowd,” The Annual Conference on South Asia, October 2019.
“Clothing Modernity Elsewhere,” at “Gender, Precarity, Materiality” Session, Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Meeting, New York, January 2018.
“This Blank, Raggy Life: Reading the Remains of Labor Across Time,” C19 Conference, Albuquerque, March 2018.
“Smoke in the Archive: Rumors of Repair & Violence in the Colonial Archive,” American Studies Association Annual Conference, Chicago, November 2017.
“Material Cultures: Tracing Labor, Language, and Knowledge Across the Indian Ocean,” American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Conference, March 2016.
“The Matter of an Ivory Statuette,” at “How Should Comparatists ‘Read’ Literature?” Session, Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Meeting, Vancouver, January 2015.
“Fragmented Forms of Violence,” National Women’s Studies Association Annual Conference (NWSA), San Juan, Puerto Rico, November 2014.
“Selfsame Ivory and the Female Touch,” The Annual Conference on South Asia- Feminist South Asia Pre-Conference, University of Wisconsin, October 2014.
“Inanimate Violence: The Ethics and Aesthetics of the Terrorist Image,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference, Seattle, March 2014.
Chair and Respondent, “Genealogies of Anticolonialism,” Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, January 2014.
“Idle Hands, Reparative Work: Rehabilitation, Development, and Legacies of Sexual Violence in Bangladesh,” The Annual Conference on South Asia- Feminist South Asia Pre-Conference, University of Wisconsin, October 2013.
“‘Become a Thinking Bomb’: Abjection and the Corpsely Life of the Female Terrorist,” Terror and the Inhuman Conference, Brown University, October 2012.
“(Ins)Urgent Archive: Historicizing Revolutionary Violence,” The Annual Conference on South Asia- Feminist South Asia Pre-Conference, University of Wisconsin, October 2012.
CONFERENCES & PANELS ORGANIZED
“New Directions in Bangladesh Studies,” UC- Berkeley, November 2019.
“Ethical Matters: Bodies, Ecologies, and Aesthetics of Difference,” ASAP: Association for Study of the Arts of the Present Annual Meeting, October 2019.
“Selfish Attitudes: Experiments in Postcolonial and Diasporic Thought,” Modern Language Association Annual Convention, January 2020.
Co-organizer, ReThinking Sex: Gender and Sexuality Studies State of the Field Conference (2009), with Professor Heather Love, University of Pennsylvania.
SELECTED AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS
American Cultures Excellence in Teaching Award, 2023-2024
Humanities Research Fund Fellowship, UC-Berkeley, 2023-2024.
Asian American Research Center Faculty Grant, 2022.
Distinguished Visiting Faculty Fellow, University of Pittsburgh Humanities Center, 2023.
Finalist, American Cultures Excellence in Teaching Award, 2021.
Finalist, Extraordinary Teaching in Extraordinary Times Award, 2020.Residential Research Group Fellowship, “Truth,” University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI), Spring 2019.
Multi-campus Faculty Working Group Grant, co-convener, “Arts of Critique,” University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI), 2018-2019.
Faculty Workshop Grant, Institute for South Asia Studies, UC Berkeley, 2018.
Helen Tartar First Book Subvention Prize, American Comparative Literature Association, 2017.
Hellman Family Fund Fellowship, 2016.
Humanities Research Fund Fellowship, UC-Berkeley, 2017.
Manuscript Conference Fellowship, Institute for International Studies, UC-Berkeley, 2016.
The 1905 Fellowship, Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, 2015.
Hannum-Warner Travel Fellowship, Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, 2015.
Feminist Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship (Declined), Duke University, 2014-2015.
Humanities Center Fellow, “The Dark Room II: Race and Visual Culture Seminar,” Northeastern University, 2013-2014.
Benjamin Franklin Scholar, University of Pennsylvania, 2005- 2011.
Pew Presidential Prize Summer Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 2008.
Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship: Bengali, 2006; 2007.
Samuel Preston Graduate Prize Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 2005.
Fulbright Fellowship, Indonesia, 2005.
Inaugural Recipient, Mount Holyoke Presidential Scholar/Leader Award, 2004.
Mary Lyon Scholar, Mount Holyoke College, 2004.
Virginia Lee Barnes Prize in English/American Studies/Women’s Studies/Medieval Studies, Mount Holyoke College, 2004.
Phi Beta Kappa Prize, Mount Holyoke College, 2004.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Faculty Co-Chair, Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Muslim and Palestinian Student Life and Campus Experience, 2021-2022.
Editorial Board, Representations.
Editorial Board, Critical South Book Series, Polity Press.
Editorial Advisory Board, Critical Times.
Executive Board, The Tagore Program on Literature, Culture and Philosophy.
Executive Committee, Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies, UC-Berkeley.
Executive Committee, MLA Forum on Postcolonial Studies, 2021-2026.
Faculty Advisor, Psychoanalysis Group, Townsend Center for the Humanities, 2020-2021.
Board of Directors, Berkeley Faculty Association, 2021- 2023.
Selection Committee, Philip Brett LGBT Studies Fellowship, UC Berkeley, 2019.
Search Committee, Hindi Language, Literature and Cultures, Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, UC Berkeley, 2019.
Fellowship Committee, Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, 2019- 2021.
Manuscript Review Workshop for Sarah Besky, Assistant Professor, Brown University, 2018.
Judge, Lambda Literary Awards, 2017.
Admissions Committee, Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory, UC-Berkeley, 2017.
Graduate Placement Committee, Department of English, UC-Berkeley, 2014-2015; 2017-2018.
Lecture and Events Committee, Department of English, UC-Berkeley, 2015-2017.
Reviewer, differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies.
Reviewer, Third World Quarterly.
Reviewer, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies.
Reviewer, Comparative Literature.
Reviewer, American Quarterly.
Faculty Advisor, Student Advisory Committee, Department of English, Dickinson College, 2013- 2014.
Affiliated Faculty, Department of American Studies, Dickinson College.
Affiliated Faculty, Department of Women and Gender Studies, Dickinson College.
Affiliated Faculty, Department of American Africana Studies, Dickinson College.
Hiring Committee Member, Department of English, Dickinson College, 2012-2013.
Graduate Admissions Committee Reader, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania, 2009.
Organizer, Latitudes: Postcolonialism, Transnationalism, Race, and Empire Reading Group, University of Pennsylvania, 2007-2009.
Coordinator, Graduate Admitted Students’ Weekend, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania, 2008.
President, Mount Holyoke Club of Philadelphia, 2005-2009.
Board Member, Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Council, 2005-2009.
LANGUAGES
Bengali- Spoken, Reading, Written: Fluency
French- Reading: Fluency; Spoken & Written: Professional Proficiency
Bahasa Indonesia- Spoken & Reading: Proficiency