Faculty Name
Rebecca Kumar, Ph.D.
Title
Assistant Professor
Department
English
Office Location
Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby, Ed.D. Academic Center 313
Education
Ph.D., English, Emory University
M.A., English (Creative Writing emphasis), Georgia State University
B.A., English and American Literature, New York University
Biography
Rebecca Kumar, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of English. She specializes in cinema and visual culture with an emphasis on global queer and feminist film. She also has scholarly interests in comparative ethnic studies, particularly Afro-Asian relations, and the emerging field of Brown Studies.
Dr. Kumar's published work appears in "Thirty Years After: New Essays on Vietnam War Literature, Film, and Art,” “Early Modern Black Diaspora Studies," and the Barnard Center for Research on Women’s digital publication, "Scholar & Feminist Online." She has also co-edited and contributed to a special issue of "Refractory: a Journal of Entertainment Media" on the Netflix series "Stranger Things." She is currently working on a book about coming-of-age/coming out films made by Brown filmmakers since 9/11.
Courses Taught
SENG 437: Theorizing Brownness
SENG 312: Shakespeare on Film
SENG301: Queer of Color Critique
SENG 362: Feminist Film Criticism
SENG 369: Images of Women in the Media
SENG 361: Cinema Literacies
SENG 103: First Year Composition
Research Interests
Cinema Studies and Visual Culture
Psychoanalysis
Feminist Theory
Queer Theory
Theories of Adaptation and Appropriation
Ethnic Studies, particularly comparative Afro-Asian relations, and the emerging field of Brown Studies
Postcolonial Literature, Film, and Theory
Popular Culture Studies, including Fan Subcultures
Publications
“‘Let Yo Booty Do that Yoga’: Cross Cultural Feminism, or Black Goddess Politics”
The Scholar & Feminist Online, Barnard Center for Research on Women
Special Issue: “Afro-Asian Feminist and Queer Formations”
“'We’re all patriots in this house': American Fantasies of Colorblindness and Border Control" in Stranger Things Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media
Special Issue: “Beyond Nostalgia: Discomfort and Difference in Stranger Things”
Co-Editor and contributor, with Lucy Baker and Amanda Howell