Assistant Professor of American Culture; College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
mrdesai@umich.edu
Office Information:
505 S. State Street | 3722 Haven Hall
Ann Arbor MI 48109-1045
phone: 734.615.2524
Digital Studies;
Race and Ethnicity;
American Culture
Education/Degree:
Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2011
About
Professor Desai comes to Ann Arbor from Syracuse University to join the American Culture faculty in Asian/Pacific Islander American studies. His research examines how transnational exchanges between Indian and American intellectuals influenced the emergent political discourses of nationhood, race, and caste in South Asia and how these exchanges also provided a new vocabulary for race and class politics in the U.S. More recently, he has begun work on another project, which examines how 20th century popular cultural and middlebrow representations of South Asian Americans shaped understandings of empire and race in the U.S. Since 2010, Prof. Desai has been a member of the Board of Directors of the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), where he contributes original archival research, assists in building digital collections, and serves as an editor and contributor to Tides, the online publication of SAADA.
Affiliation(s)
- Faculty: Department of American Culture (AC), Asian/Pacific Islander American (A/PIA) Studies
Field(s) of Study
- South Asian American studies
