Department of English

Meena Venkataramanan

A.B., English and South Asian Studies, Harvard University, 2021, M.Phil., English, University of Cambridge, 2022
Meena Venkataramanan
Research Interests Asian American Studies, Black Studies, Afro-Asian Studies, Race and Ethnicity, American Literature and Culture, Anglophone Caribbean, 20th Century and Contemporary, Law and Literature, Shakespeare and Race

Biography

My research is situated at the intersection of contemporary Asian and Black diaspora literature, considering Black social thought as a lens to better understand Asian and Afro-Asian identity formation in the United States, United Kingdom, and Anglophone Caribbean. My scholarly interests also include Shakespeare and race studies. Beyond academia, I am a freelance book critic and journalist who worked for a year at The Washington Post, covering race and identity while writing book reviews and author profiles. I have also contributed book criticism to The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Public Books, among other outlets.

 

 

Publications

"‘Life Worth Living’: Afropessimism, Social Death, and Allyship in Paul Beatty’s The White Boy Shuffle and The Sellout," Oxford Research in English, May 2023.