Dr. Nitasha Sharma
Assistant Professor of African American Studies & Asian American Studies Address: African American Studies Department 5-133 Crowe 1860 S. Campus Dr. Evanston, IL 60208-2209 Phone: 847-467-0448 Fax: 847-467-0448 Email: n-sharma@northwestern.edu

Courses:

AFAM 214-1: Comparative Race Relations: Asian and Black Relations in the U.S.

AFAM 327-0: The Racial and Gender Politics of Hip Hop

Comparative Race Relations: Asian and Black Relations in the U.S. (Spring 2007)

Hapa Issues: Asian Americans of Mixed Racial Descent (Spring 2007)

Degree:

Anthropology, University of California Santa Barbara (2004)

 

Areas of Interest:

Comparative Racial Studies, Asian/Black Relations, Black Popular Culture, Hip Hop Studies, Mixed Race Studies, Multi-sited Ethnography, Race, Ethnicity and Identity

Current Research:

Claiming Space, Making Race: Second Generation South Asian American Hip Hop Artists , Dr. Sharma's ethnographic study of South Asian American hip hop artists analyzes how they use black popular culture to create and express alliances with Blacks as people of color. She examines Black and South Asian race relations in order to document how immigrants insert themselves into existing racial hierarchies and, in the process, develop new discourses of "race." During the summer of 2005, Professor Sharma conducted preliminary fieldwork in Trinidad on douglas--people of African and Indian descent--in order to expand her focus on Indian/Black relations beyond the U.S. and to develop her interest in mixed race studies. Her upcoming research for 2009-2010 is a comparative study of multiracial people of asian and african descent in Hawaii and Trinidad.

Recent Awards:

National Emerging Scholar of 2009, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Grant (2009-2010)

WCAS Distinguished Teaching Award, Northwestern University (2009)

Outstanding Teaching Award, African American Studies, Northwestern University (2006-2007, 2007-2008)

Recent Publications:

"Down by Law: The Effects and Responses of Copyright Restrictions on Sampling in Rap." In the /Journal of Political and Legal Anthropology. (5/99)

"Rotten Coconuts and Other Strange Fruit: A Slice of Hip Hop from the West Coast." In the /South Asian Magazine for Action and Reflection. (11/01)

"The Sounds of Social Consciousness: South Asian Rappers on Capitalism, Sexism, and Racism." In _Essays in Inequality and Injustice_, Kira Hall, ed. Meerut, India: Archana Publishers.

"Musical Manifestos: Desi Hip Hop Artists Sound Off on Capitalism and Sexism." In The Subcontinental: The Journal of South Asian american Public Affairs. Spring 2007:25-38

“Polyvalent Voices: Ethnic and Racialized Desi Hip Hop,” In Desi Rap: South Asian Americans in Hip Hop, Ajay Nair and Murali Balaji, eds. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers/Lexington Books 2008:17-32

(Forthcoming) Hip Hop's Desis and a Global Race Consciousness. Duke University Press.