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Nitasha Tamar 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: 847-491-4803

Email: n-sharma@northwestern.edu

Research Interests:
Comparative Race Studies
Race and Anti-Racism
Asian/Black Relations
Black Popular Culture
Hip Hop Studies
Mixed Race Studies
Multisited Ethnography
U.S. and the Pacific

Courses:
FALL 2011:
ASAM 210: Introduction to Asian American Studies
AFAM 480: Ethnographies of Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity

SPRING 2012:
AFAM 214-1: Comparative Race Relations: Asian and Black Relations in the U.S.
ASAM 250: Hapa Issues: Asian Americans of Mixed Racial Descent

Degree:
Anthropology, University of California Santa Barbara (2004)

Current Research:
Dr. Sharma's academic activities are based on an interdisciplinary, comparative, and ethnographic approach to the study of difference, inequality, and racism. The central goal of her teaching, research, and writing is to develop models for multiracial alliance building by zeroing in on cultural phenomena that unearth and challenge the factors that structure contentious race relations. Her book, Hip Hop Desis: South Asian Americans, Blackness, and a Global Race Consciousness (Duke 2010), analyzes why second generation members of an upwardly mobile and middle-class immigrant group would choose to identify with Blacks—a group that has been constructed as "disadvantaged."  She reveals how South Asian Americans, or desis, develop new anti-racist models of immigrant identity that challenge the narrow identity politics of ethnicity.  The racial consciousness expressed by these hip hop artists as "people of color" facilitates the development of multiracial coalitions that cross boundaries while explicitly acknowledging "difference."

Currently, Dr. Sharma is collecting ethnographic data for her second project, Hidden Hapas: Multiracial Blacks and Blackness in Hawai'i. This transoceanic analysis of multiracial Black Asians and Black Pacific Islanders details how mixed race people negotiate, express, and repress race as they identify across constructed racial categories. It illustrates the heterogeneity of African and Asian diasporas by locating Blacks in the Pacific. This work speaks to debates in Mixed Race Studies, Comparative Race Studies, and Diaspora Studies.

Ultimately, her research examines overlapping Asian/Black diasporas and in the process develops new ways of conceptualizing race—and forging models of anti-racism—that is global in scope.

Recent Awards:
Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Grant (2009-2010)
National Emerging Scholar of 2009, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education
Weniberg College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award, Northwestern University (2009)
Outstanding Teaching Award, African American Studies, Northwestern University (2006-2007, 2007-2008)

Recent Publications:
"Pacific Revisions of Blackness: Blacks Address Race and Belonging in Hawai'i," Amerasia Journal (Fall 2011).

"Hip Hop Desis: South Asian Americans, Blackness and Global Race Consciousness." Duke University Press 2010.

 

"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 2009.

"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

"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

"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)

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