Department of English
Photo of Alyssa Manansala

Alyssa Manansala

B.A. Literature, Sarah Lawrence College, 2012 , M.F.A. Creative Writing, California Institute of the Arts, 2018 , M.A. Public Humanities, Brown University, 2023
Alyssa_Manansala@brown.edu
Research Interests Asian American Studies, African American Studies and the Black Atlantic, Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, Literature and Cultural Theory , Poetry and Poetics, Gender and Sexuality Studies, 20th-Century and Contemporary, Visual Culture, Media Studies, Performance Studies

Biography

My dissertation interrogates how processes of colonialism, capital, and globalization have configured race, heteronormative gender roles, and deviant sexualities to construct and circulate a global figure of the Filipina as caregiver in literary and visual representations. My objects of analysis include poetry and memoir, performance, new media, film, and reality television. Prior to Brown, I was awarded the 2018/2019 Teaching Fellowship and the 2019 REEF Artist Residency by the School of Critical Studies at CalArts. My creative and public-facing writing has been published in Nat. Brut, In Dance, TAYO Literary Magazine, Gulf Coast Review, among others.

Research

Peer-Reviewed Articles
“The (Neo)colonial Sentimentality of 90 Day Fiancé and the Figure of the Heartless Filipina.”
Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association. Issue 15.1, Spring 2026.