I have taught a variety of courses on English literature, writing and rhetoric, and critical race studies at several universities. Currently, I teach courses in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University, where I also serve as a faculty tutor for the Hume Writing Center for Writing and Rhetoric. Previously I taught courses in the Department of English at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where I also contributed to the programming for the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology. I have also taught in the Department of English and the Writing Program at the University of the California, Santa Barbara, where I earned a Ph.D. Certificate in College and University Teaching, as well as for the Undergraduate Student Initiated Education Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, where I also served as a peer writing tutor in the Undergraduate Writing Center.
I view the teaching of literature, writing, and rhetoric as an immense privilege and strive to equip my students with the skills of analysis, self-expression, and self-advocacy that will help them excel in social and professional contexts beyond the classroom. My main goals as an educator are to help my students cultivate a passion for social justice, develop effective communication skills, and become creative and critical thinkers.
I view the teaching of literature, writing, and rhetoric as an immense privilege and strive to equip my students with the skills of analysis, self-expression, and self-advocacy that will help them excel in social and professional contexts beyond the classroom. My main goals as an educator are to help my students cultivate a passion for social justice, develop effective communication skills, and become creative and critical thinkers.
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Ethnofuturist Rhetorics: Imagining the Future of Race
PWR/CSRE 91RW. Elective course cross-listed in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. Exploration of the genre of ethnofuturism, a rhetorical movement to envision the future of race relations. First, we examine examples of speculative ethnofuturist rhetoric (such as films, stories, comics, visual artwork, and visual reality projects) produced by Black, Asian, Latinx, and Native rhetors, assessing how they envision the future consequences of existing racial systems and imagine alternative possibilities for societal race relations. Following in the footsteps of these ethnofuturist rhetors, students then select a racial justice issue that they would like to learn more about and create their own work of ethnofuturism that explores the future of this issue. Ultimately, students develop an enriched understanding of how to engage with the rhetorical tradition of ethnofuturism to imagine the future trajectory of contemporary racial issues and envision possible solutions to advance our society toward greater racial equity. |
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Not Part but Whole: Writing Mixed Race Identity
PWR 2RW. Writing and Rhetoric 2 course in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric. Exploration of public debates about mixed race identity, with a central focus on the question: what does it mean to be mixed race and how do our words, stories, and discourses construct this identity? Together we critically examine the ongoing rhetoric surrounding multiraciality, in which mixed race people are always and already politicized, represented as figures of shame (“mixing just isn’t natural”), exoticism (“mixed babies are so beautiful”), tragedy (“that poor child will never belong”), or post-racial utopia (“soon we’ll all be beige so race won’t matter anymore”). Students pursue individual research projects that consider some critical aspect of mixed race identity and formulate arguments in written, oral, and multimedia formats. In addition to sharpening research and communication skills, students develop a critical framework for understanding how written and oral expression can offer a transformative platform for reimagining the mixed self. |
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Writing for Liberation: The Rhetoric of Antiracism
PWR 1RW. Writing and Rhetoric 1 course in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric. Exploration of the role of narrative in movements for racial justice throughout U.S. history. Students consider how national discussions about U.S. race relations are discursively constructed and assess how rhetorical arguments can advance antiracism, foster interracial dialogue, and advocate for a more just society. Questions to explore include: What role does language and narrative play in efforts to achieve racial equity? What kinds of rhetorical strategies do activists, scholars, and artists use to advance antiracism? How might antiracist discourse support movements for liberation? In exploring rhetorical approaches to topics like the movement for Black lives, police reform, racial violence, reparations, ethnic studies education, indigenous land rights, immigration policies, Islamophobia, and the model minority myth, students develop critical thinking skills, analyze a range of genres, and learn how to develop research-based arguments. |
Ethnic American Literature ENGL 346. Upper-division undergraduate English major course. Offers general education credit, United States Cultural Pluralism credit, and Graduation Writing Requirement credit. Introduction to literature written by people of color from 1900 to the present. Students read a variety of literary works (including personal essays, poems, short stories, plays, and novels) written by African American, Native American, Latinx/Chicanx, and Asian American authors with the goal of understanding how writers of color use literature to engage social and political issues. Includes works by W. E. B. Du Bois, Richard Wright, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nella Larsen, Octavia Butler, Ken Liu, Sui Sin Far, Miné Okubo, David Henry Hwang, Gloria Anzaldúa, Helena María Viramontes, Leslie Marmon Silko, Sherman Alexie, and Louise Erdrich. |
Asian American Literature ENGL 348. Upper-division undergraduate English major course. Offers general education credit, United States Cultural Pluralism credit, and Graduation Writing Requirement credit. Investigation of the social, cultural, and political history of people of West Asian, East Asian, South Asian, and Southeast Asian descent in the United States through the rich lens of literature. Students read a variety of literary works (including plays, novels, memoirs, short stories, and personal essays) that give voice to the diverse experiences of Asian American communities, challenge problematic racial ideologies (such as Orientalism, Islamophobia, and the dichotomous myths of the yellow peril and model minority), and respond to the impact and legacies of historical phenomena like the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, Japanese American internment, and the War on Terror. Includes works by Carlos Bulosan, Miné Okubo, David Henry Hwang, Chang-Rae Lee, Sui Sin Far, Wajahat Ali, Ken Liu, and Viet Thanh Nguyen. |
Post-9/11 Muslim American Literature ENGL 381: Diversity in Twentieth-Century American Literature. Upper-division undergraduate English major course. Offers general education credit, United States Cultural Pluralism credit, and Graduation Writing Requirement credit. Introduction to the rich body of creative work emerging from the diverse Muslim American community in the aftermath of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on September 11, 2001. Students analyze a variety of works (including poetry, film, novels, plays, and short stories) produced by Muslim American writers of North African, West Asian, and South Asian heritage with the goal of examining how these writers use literary and cultural production to express agency and challenge anti-Muslim sentiment and public policies in the post-9/11 era. Includes works by Khaled Hosseini, Mohja Kahf, Laila Halaby, Suheir Hammad, Joseph Geha, Wajahat Ali, Evelyn Shakur, Randa Jarrar, Mira Nair, and Qasim Basir. |
Mixed Race Subjects in the U.S. Literary Imagination
ENGL 449: Topics in American Literature. Upper-division undergraduate English senior seminar. Examination of the figure of the mixed race individual in U.S. literature in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with the goal of critically examining the racial hierarchy that lies at the heart of U.S. society. By examining literary representations of the mixed race experience throughout modern U.S. history, students assess how narrative can play a crucial role in deconstructing the national myth of white supremacy. In reading, analyzing, and interpreting such literature, students consider how race has been socially constructed throughout U.S. history and reflect on how the shifting boundaries of racial categorization have produced significant social, economic, and political consequences for racialized communities in the United States. Includes works by James Weldon Johnson, Lucinda Roy, Danzy Senna, Celeste Ng, Ken Liu, Carmit Delman, Ruth Ozeki, Kevin Johnson, and May-lee Chai. |
Ethnofuturisms: Speculative Visions of Race and Gender
ENGL 449: Topics in American Literature. Upper-division undergraduate English senior seminar. Exploration of how U.S. writers of color use the rich genre of speculative fiction to explore various dimensions of race and gender, advance social justice, and build community. Such “ethnofuturisms” offer a rich space for writers of color to imagine alternative futures that grapple with the foundations of racism at the heart of U.S. nation formation and the role of race and gender in all structures of past and present U.S. society. While the genre of speculative fiction has historically privileged white male voices, this course centers the voices, experiences, and visions of African American, Asian American, Latinx, and Native American authors. In considering how writers of color use the conventions and themes of speculative fiction to theorize the role of race in the future United States, students explore how race has been socially constructed throughout U.S. history and how the shifting boundaries of racial categorization have produced significant social, economic, and political consequences for racialized communities in the United States. Includes works by W. E. B. Du Bois, George Schuyler, Derrick Bell, Octavia Butler, vagabond, Bao Phi, Mohsin Hamid, Louise Erdrich, Wanuri Kahiu, and N. K. Jemisin. |
Refiguring Islam After 9/11 ENGL 511: Seminar in American Literature. Graduate course in the English M.A. program. In-depth study of the primary concerns and themes of post-9/11 Muslim American literary and cultural production. Students examine how contemporary Muslim American literature engages with a long history of anti-Muslim sentiment and complex racial dynamics in the United States. Students analyze primary works by Khaled Hosseini, Mohja Kahf, Laila Halaby, Suheir Hammad, Joseph Geha, Wajahat Ali, Mira Nair, and Qasim Basir alongside key scholars in the fields of critical race studies, Arab/Muslim studies, gender and sexuality studies, and post-colonial studies, such as Edward Said, Richard Brent Turner, Judith Butler, Francis Morey, Amina Yaqin, Mervat Hatem, Jasbir Puar, Evelyn Alsultany, Michael Omi, Howard Winant, and Sylvia Chan-Malik. |
African American Literature: Voices of Black Liberation
ENGL 513: Seminar in Special Topics. Graduate course in the English M.A. program. In-depth examination of the literature produced by African American writers during various movements for black liberation throughout U.S. history, such as the abolitionist movement, the post-Reconstruction search for racial uplift, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights movement, the Black Power movement, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Students explore the legacies and afterlives of slavery in U.S. society and consider how African American communities have used rhetoric, literature, and narrative to engage in collective forms of resistance against anti-black racism. Texts examined include short stories, essays, autobiographies, novels, plays, and poetry produced by Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Alain Locke, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Paul Beatty, and Alicia Garza, alongside secondary literature from black cultural studies, black feminist studies, and critical race studies. |
Academic Writing WRIT 2. Lower-division undergraduate course in the Writing Program. Introduction to the foundations of academic writing in the university. Students learn how to conduct rhetorical analysis by studying several critical concepts, such as genre, audience, purpose, evidence, context, tone, and style, and producing different genres of writing that reflect their understanding of these concepts. Students read key scholars in the field of writing studies, including Linda Adler-Kassner, Kerry Dirk, Peter Elbow, Mike Bunn, Laura Bolin Carroll, Anne Lamott, Richard Straub, John Swales, Karen Rosenberg, L. Lennie Irvin, and Kyle D. Stedman. Course assessments include three writing projects and a final course portfolio. |
Making American Identities ENGL 104A: American Literature from 1900 to the Present. Upper-division undergraduate English major course. Offers general education credit. Considers the evolution of the meaning of American identity through the lens of literature. Students examine how massive social, technological, economic, and political changes have drastically altered the conception of what it means to be "American" since the turn of the twentieth century. Topics under consideration include the impact of gender, national origin, and race on identity formation, changing conceptions about national ideals like the American Dream, and the postmodern turn of the late twentieth century. Includes works by William Dean Howells, Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, E. E. Cummings, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Kate Chopin, Sui Sin Far, Nella Larsen, Richard Wright, W. E. B. Du Bois, Charles Chesnutt, Zora Neale Hurston, Arthur Miller, Sylvia Plath, Allen Ginsberg, Elizabeth Bishop, Don DeLillo, and Paul Beatty. |
African American Fiction and Criticism, 1920s to the Present ENGL 191. Upper-division undergraduate English major seminar. Offers general education credit. Co-taught. Study of how modern African American writers have portrayed the intersection between race and gender and challenged the practices of gendered racism. Students develop a critical understanding of gender- and colorblindness and conduct an independent research project on one of four topics: 1) race, gender, and slavery; 2) Black power and gender; 3) race, gender, and the prison, and 4) race, gender, and sexuality. Students read literary works by Octavia Butler, Richard Wright, Elaine Hansberry, Sanyika Shakur, Marlon Riggs, and Elaine Brown alongside scholarly works by Angela Davis, Ashraf Rushdy, Deborah Gray White, Grace Elizabeth Hale, David Marriott, and Kimberly Springer. |
Introduction to U.S. Minority Literature
ENGL 50. Lower-division undergraduate English major course. Offers general education credit. Introduction to literature written by African American, Asian American, Chicanx/Latinx, and Native American writers from the twentieth century to the present. Students consider how writers of color have used literature to analyze, negotiate, and challenge their marginalization and to assert agency and self-expression within a historically white supremacist U.S. society. Includes works by W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Octavia Butler, Gloria Anzaldúa, Sandra Cisneros, Leslie Marmon Silko, Sherman Alexie, David Henry Hwang, and Luis J. Rodriguez. |
Speculative Visions of the Other ENGL 192. Science Fiction. Upper-division undergraduate English major course. Offers general education credit. Introduction to the rich genre of science fiction, with particular emphasis on literature that explores the problematic practice of othering, or constructing binary frameworks (us/them, human/non-human, good/evil) that divide and dehumanize. Students analyze a variety of science fiction works (including films, novels, and short stories) that are concerned with exploring, challenging, and problematizing definitions of the other. Includes works by Mary Shelley, George Schuyler, Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler, Ridley Scott, and Nancy Kress. |
Taking Bestsellers Seriously ENGL 88S. Lower-division undergraduate English seminar. Undergraduate Student Initiated Education Program. Exploration of the debates around literary value in the academy through an analysis of several popular literary genres, including science fiction, fantasy, and mystery. Students investigate the formation of the literary canon, particularly the ways in which distinctions between “low-brow” and “high-brow” literature are determined, by analyzing bestselling novels like J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game alongside secondary criticism on literary value, canon formation, popular culture, and mass consumerism. |