Nishant Upadhyay

  • Assistant Professor
  • Associate Chair of Graduate Studies
  • ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES
  • GENDER AND SEXUALITY STUDIES
Address

Office Location: Ketchum 166

Pronouns: they / them / theirs

Office Hours

 

Education

PhD, Social and Political Thought, York University, Canada, 2016
MA, Social and Political Thought, York University, Canada, 2010 
BA(H), Economics & Development Studies, Queen鈥檚 University, Canada, 2007

Research Interests

Critical Ethnic Studies, Asian (North) American Studies, Queer & Trans of Color Critiques, Intersectional & Transnational Feminisms, Anti-colonial & Decolonial Thinking, Transnational Settler Colonialisms (US, Canada, India), South Asian Studies, Anti-Caste Critiques

Affiliations

Women & Gender Studies
LGBTQ Studies 
Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies
Center for Asian Studies


Nishant joined the Department of Ethnic Studies in Fall 2019. They received their PhD at York University, Toronto in the Graduate Program of Social and Political Thought in 2016. Their dissertation received the  in 2018. Prior to joining CU 麻豆影院, Nishant taught Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Northern Arizona University.

Their research focuses on intersections of race, indigeneity, caste, gender, and sexuality. Their book manuscript, Indians on Indian Lands: Transnational Intersections of Race, Caste, and Indigeneity, studies the formation of dominant-caste Hindu Indian diasporas in North America and Indian diasporic complicities in processes of settler colonialism, racial capitalism, antiblackness, heteronormativity, brahminical supremacy, and Hindu nationalism. The manuscript is under advance contract with the University of Illinois Press. Their scholarship has been published in Cultural Studies, InterventionsJournal of Critical Ethnic Studies, Feminist StudiesWSQ and other journals, anthologies, and online spaces. They have edited a special issue of Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory (2014) on the Ghadar movement, and co-edited a special issue of Feral Feminisms (2015) on transnational feminist analysis of settler colonialism.

At CU 麻豆影院, they teach within the areas of Queer and Trans of Color Studies, decolonial approaches to gender and sexuality, and Asian American Studies. Their teaching grounds intersectional, transnational, and decolonial frameworks. In recognition of their teaching, in Spring 2021 they received the Best Should Teach Gold Award, and in Spring 2020 the Staff Integrity Award. In Spring 2021, their students in the Queer and Trans of Color Visions class (ETHN 3101) made this collective zine as the final project:


Publications

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles (Selected)

鈥淗indu Nation and its Queers: Caste, Islamophobia, and De/coloniality in India.鈥 Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies (2020). Article translated and published in Malayalam by

鈥淢aking of 鈥淢odel鈥 South Asians on the Tar Sands: Intersections of Race, Caste, and Indigeneity.鈥&苍产蝉辫;Journal of the Critical Ethnic Studies (2019). 

鈥淐an You Get More American Than Native American?鈥: (Racialized) Drag Americans, Settler Colonialism, and RuPaul鈥檚 Drag Race.鈥&苍产蝉辫;Cultural Studies (2019).

鈥淔eminisms, Collaborations, Friendships: A Conversation,鈥&苍产蝉辫;co-authored with Richa Nagar, 脰zlem Aslan, Nadia Hasan, Omme Rahemtullah, and Begum Uzun.  Feminist Studies (2016). 

鈥淧inkwatching Israel, Whitewashing Canada: Queer (Settler) Politics and Indigenous Colonization in Canada鈥, co-authored with Michael C. Jackman. WSQ: Women鈥檚 Studies Quarterly (2014).

鈥淨ueering Conceptual Boundaries: Assembling Indigenous, Marxist, Postcolonial and Queer Perspectives鈥, co-authored with Paulo Ravecca. Jindal Global Law Review (2013). 

Edited Special Journal Issues

鈥淐omplicities, Connections, and Struggles: Critical Transnational Feminist Analysis of Settler Colonialism,鈥 special guest co-editor of Feral Feminisms (2015), with Shaista Patel and Ghaida Moussa.

鈥淕hadar: A Living History,鈥 special guest editor of Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory (2014).

Contributions to Edited Collections (Selected)

鈥淭rans/lating Queer, Annihilating Caste, Decolonizing Praxis,鈥 co-authored with Sandeep Bakshi, in Routledge Handbook on Translation, Gender, and Feminism, eds. Luise von Flotow and Hala Kamal (Routledge Press, London: 2020).

鈥淏rown Bodies, Borders, and Boats: Reading Tamil 鈥業rregular Arrivants鈥 Through the History of the Komagata Maru," co-authored with Nadia Hasan, Sailaja Krishnamurti, Omme Rahemtullah, and Nayani Vathsaladevi-Thiyagarajah, in Charting Imperial Itineraries: Unmooring the Komagata Maru, eds. Rita K. Dhamoon, Davina Bhandar, Renisa Mawani, and Satwinder K. Bains (UBC Press, Vancouver: 2019). *Anthology received honorable mention from The Canadian Studies Network for the Best Edited Collection in 2020

Non-Peer Reviewed Journal Articles (Selected)

鈥淐oloniality Of White Feminism and Its Transphobia: A Comment on Burt.鈥 Feminist Criminology (2021).

鈥淕eographies of Occupation in South Asia鈥, co-authored with Nosheen Ali, Mona Bhan, Sahana Ghosh, Hafsa Kanjwal, Zunaira Komal, Deepti Misri, Shruti Mukherjee, Sabia Varma, and Ather Zia. Feminist Studies (2019).

鈥淧ernicious Continuities: Un/settling Violence, Race and Colonialism.鈥 Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory (2013).

Non-Academic Publications (Selected)

鈥淐OVID Carnage in India: Politics of Hatred, Hindu Right, and Western Imperialism鈥, , (2021).

鈥淥n Atlanta and 麻豆影院 Shootings: Abolitionist Visions鈥, , (2021).

鈥淭rans Liberation & Colonial Erasures,鈥 (2020).

鈥淨ueer Rights, Section 377, and Decolonizing Sexualities,鈥 (2018).