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Kavita Daiya currently teaches a range of English courses that are cross-listed
with the Women’s Studies Program at GWU. Following up on her research
interests, the courses she teaches explore transnational South Asian literature
and film, as well as more broadly, postcolonial literature and film from
Africa, the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the United States.
Gender and sexuality are prominent concerns in her research and pedagogy, and a
transnational feminist approach to culture and politics informs both. What her
courses and her scholarship have in common is a commitment to think across
boundaries – disciplinary, cultural and national -, to find new and humane
answers to the urgent questions of our times, about violence, identity,
nations, and power.
The graduate seminars she has taught in the past include Eng 247 “The Location
of Postcolonial Theory,” which surveys the historical development of, and
current debates in the field of feminist postcolonial studies, on topics
including nationalism, colonialism, modernity, globalization, subalternity and
violence; Eng 241 “Conceptualizing Genders” which engaged theories of gender
and sexuality in feminist scholarship (in the Humanities and Social Sciences),
with postcolonial and contemporary American literature and film; Eng 241
“Gender and Sexuality in a Postcolonial World,” an interdisciplinary seminar on
the theory, history and politics of gender through postcolonial studies, queer
theory, African American literature and globalization studies; and Eng 247
‘Gender, Religion and Globalization in Transnational Literature and Cinema” on
modern and postmodern literature and postcolonial film from Britain, South Asia
and the United States.
Dr. Daiya’s undergraduate introductory and advanced courses also take a
transnational approach to the study of national literatures and cultures, and
engage British, postcolonial and ethnic American literature and film. Her
undergraduate courses include Eng 173 “Rethinking Culture and Violence:
Ethnicity, Identity and Violence in Postcoloniality” on philosophical critiques
of violence, theories of culture, and international literature; Eng 175
“Embodiment, Sexuality and History in Transnational Literature: South Asia and
Beyond” about gender and sexuality in global South Asian, British, South
African and Caribbean Literatures and Third Cinema; Eng 173, “At Home in the
World: Nation, Migration, Modernity and Identity in South Asian Literature and
Culture” on vexed belongings-national, cultural, racial-in South Asian and
Asian American literature and cinema; Eng 91 and 92, “Reading Cultures:
Literature, History, and Empire” introductory sequence on a range of aesthetic,
historical and social questions regarding the relationship between literature,
empire and its aftermath.
In addition to serving as an undergraduate advisor to English majors and
minors, Dr. Daiya also directs dissertations, M.A. theses (English, Women’s
Studies) and English Honors Program theses at GWU. Her advisees include
students in English, Gender Studies, American Studies, Human Sciences and
International Affairs.
Before joining GWU, Dr. Daiya has taught at the University of Chicago (in
English and the M.A. Program in the Humanities) and at the University of
Illinois at Urbana Champaign, on subjects including Colonial and Postcolonial
Literature, Victorian Literature, Modernism, Cultural Studies, and Writing and
Composition.
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