UMass Boston

Human rights and literature; American literature (including Asian American literature, Native American literature, and literature of the American South); interdisciplinary approaches to literature; literature in the context of comparative race and ethnicities; pedagogy of literature; literatures of the Middle East

PhD, State University of New York at Buffalo

Monographs

• Post-Apartheid Community Activism: Mandla Majola and the Struggle for Social, Economic, and Health Equity. (co-authored monograph; Palgrave Press, 2024)
• Constructing the Enemy: Antipathy/ Empathy in U. S. Literature and Law. Temple University Press, 2012.
• The World Next Door: South Asian American Literature and the Idea of America. Temple University Press, 2004. Winner of the Cultural Studies Book Award (2006), Association for Asian American Studies.

Edited Books and Special Journal Issues

• Climate Justice and Public Health: Realities, Responses, and Reimaginings for a Better Future (co-edited 14-chapter volume; University of Massachusetts Press, 2024)
• Series co-editor of four-volume Asian American Literature in Transition (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Each volume in the series was curated by two co-editors and has 20 chapters. Volume 1 covers the period 1850-1930; Volume 2, 1930-1965; Volume 3, 1965-1996; Volume 4, 1996 – 2020.
• Interdisciplinary Approaches to Human Rights: History, Politics, Practice. Ed. Rajini Srikanth and Elora Halim Chowdhury. Routledge, 2018. Introductory chapter authored by co-editors. The book includes 19 chapters, all authored by UMass Boston faculty members
• Cambridge History of Asian American Literature. Ed. Rajini Srikanth and Min Hyoung Song. Cambridge University Press, 2016.
• Asian American Literary Review: Special Issue Commemorating the 10th Anniversary of September 11. Vol. 2 No. 1.5 (Fall 2011). Invited guest co-editor with Parag Khandhar.
• International Feminist Journal of Politics Vol. 10 No. 4 (December 2008). Ed. Elora Chowdhury, Leila Farsakh, and Rajini Srikanth (editors listed alphabetically).
• White Women in Racialized Spaces: Imaginative Transformation and Ethical Action in Literature (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), Ed. Samina Najmi and Rajini Srikanth (editors listed alphabetically). A collection of fourteen essays that discuss the literary representations by and of white women in their encounters with racialized “Others.” The essays span 300 years and cover varied geographical and cultural locations such as Egypt, the United States, and Thailand.
• Bold Words: A Century of Asian American Writing, Ed. Rajini Srikanth and Esther Y. Iwanaga (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001). A literary reader of 100 years of Asian American writing by over 60 authors representing diverse groups (Bangladeshi, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino/a, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, and Vietnamese) making up Asian America.
• Encounters: People of Asian Descent in the Americas (Boulder, CO: Rowan and Littlefield, 1999), Ed. Roshni Rustomji-Kerns with Rajini Srikanth and Leny Strobel. A collection of fictional and non-fictional narratives, oral histories, poetry and photography by and about Asians in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, and South America. The collected text focuses on encounters between Asian groups and other minorities. I was responsible for compiling the section of the book that focuses on the United States.
• A Part, Yet Apart: South Asians in Asian America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), Ed. Lavina Shankar and Rajini Srikanth (editors listed alphabetically). A multidisciplinary anthology of twelve essays that explore the ways in which South Asian Americans do or do not "fit into" Asian America. Nominated for the Cultural Studies book award of the Association for Asian American Studies.
• Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America (New York City: Asian American Writers’ Workshop, 1996), Ed. Sunaina Maira and Rajini Srikanth (editors listed alphabetically). A collection of fiction, poetry, essays, and photography from first- and second-generation South Asians in North America. Winner of the 1997 Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award.

Articles in Journals

• “The Axis of Power and Academic Freedom.” Journal of Asian American Studies Vol 19.1 (February 2016): 105-110.
• “South African Solidarity with Palestinians: Motivations, Strategies, and Impact.” New England Journal of Public Policy Vol. 27 No. 1 (June, 2015). Article 3. http://scholarworks.umb.edu/nejpp/vol27/iss1/3/
• “Quiet Prose and Bare Life: Why We Should Eschew the Sensational in Human Rights Language.” Frame: Journal of Literary Studies Vol. 27.1 (May 2014): 79-99.
• “Introduction: We Will Not Forget.” Asian American Literary Review: Special Issue Commemorating the 10th Anniversary of September 11. Vol. 2 No. 1.5 (Fall 2011): 1-9.
• “Collecting and Translating the Non-Western Other: The Perils and Possibilities of a World Literature Website.” The Comparatist Vol. 34 (May 2010): 127-153.
• “Introduction: Engaging Islam.” Co-authored with Elora Chowdhury and Leila Farsakh. International Feminist Journal of Politics Vol. 10 No. 4 (December 2008): 439-454.
• "South Asia and the Challenge of Intimacy in the 'Global War on Terror.’" South Asian Review Vol. 28 No. 1 (2007): 5-23.
• “Overwhelmed by the World: Teaching Literature and the Difference of Nations.” Pedagogy Vol. 7.2 (Spring 2007): 192-207.
• “When Empathy Disappears: The Disconnect Between African American and Asian American Muslims.” Works and Days: Intellectual Intersections and Racial/Ethnic Crossings. Vol. 24 No. 47/48 ((2006): 89-117.

Chapters in Books

• “States of Violence: 9/11, the ‘War on Terror,’ and South Asian, Arab, and Muslim American Literature.” Asian American Literature in Transition, Volume 4, 1996-2020. Ed. Betsy Huang and Victor Román Mendoza. Cambridge University Press, 2021. 75-96.
• “Arundhati Roy’s Non-Fiction Writing.” Teaching Anglophone South Asian Women Writers. Ed. Deepika Bahri and Filippo Menozzi. Modern Language Association of America, 2021. 321-330.
• “International Epidemics: Public Health as a Cornerstone of Innovative Honors Education” (co-authored with Louise Penner). Excellence, Innovation, and Ingenuity in Honors Education. Ed. Graeme Harper. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019. 99-115.
• “Introduction.” (co-authored with Elora Halim Chowdhury). Interdisciplinary Approaches to Human Rights: History, Politics, Practice. Ed. Rajini Srikanth and Elora Halim Chowdhury. Routledge, 2018. 1-17.
• “Refugee Camps and the (Educational) Rights of the Child.” Interdisciplinary Approaches to Human Rights: History, Politics, Practice. Ed. Rajini Srikanth and Elora Halim Chowdhury. Routledge, 2018. 180-195.
• “Asian American Studies and Palestine: The Accidental and Reluctant Pioneer.” Flashpoints for Asian American Studies. Ed. Cathy Schlund-Vials. Fordham University Press, 2018. 132-150.
• ““The Complexities of Transnational Female Solidarity in 'Driving with Selvi.’” New Feminisms in South Asian Social Media, Film, and Literature: Disrupting the Discourse. Ed. Sonora Jha and Alka Kurian. Routledge Press. 2017. 219-237.
• “Introduction.” Co-authored with Min Hyoung Song. The Cambridge History of Asian American Literature. Ed. Rajini Srikanth and Min Hyoung Song. Cambridge University Press, 2015. 1-37.
• “‘The War on Terror’: Post-9/11 South Asian and Arab American Literature.” Cambridge Companion to Asian American Literature. Ed. Crystal Parikh and Daniel Kim. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 73-85.
• “Terrorism.” Keywords for Asian American Studies. Ed. Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Linda Trinh Vo, and K. Scott Wong. New York: New York University Press, 2015. 228-232.
• “The South Asian Subcontinent.” The Routledge Companion to Asian American and Pacific Islander Literature. Ed. Rachel C. Lee. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. 339-352.
• “What Lies Beneath: Lahiri’s Desirable Brand of Difference in Unaccustomed Earth.” In Naming Jhumpa Lahiri: Canons and Controversies. Ed. Floyd Cheung and Lavina Dhingra. Rowman and Littlefield, 2011. 51-75.
• “Inexplicable Desire, Pedagogical Compulsion: Teaching the Literatures of the Middle East.” In Transforming Classroom Culture: Inclusive Pedagogical Practices. Ed. Arlene Dallalfar, Esther Kingston-Mann, and Tim Sieber. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 95-110.
• “Abraham Verghese Doctors Autobiography in His Own Country.” Form and Transformation in Asian American Literature. Ed. Zhou Xiaojing and Samina Najmi. (University of Washington Press, 2004). 125-143.
• “The Soil Under the Gravel: ESL Learners and Writing About Literature.” In Crossing the Curriculum: Multilingual Learners in College Classrooms. Ed. Vivian Zamel and Ruth Spack (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003) 181-195.
• “Unsettling Asian American Literature: When More than America is in the Heart.” Beyond the Borders: American Literature and Postcolonial Theory. Ed. Deborah L. Madsen (Pluto Press, 2003). 92-110.
• “Gift Wrapped or Paper Bagged? Packaging Race for the Classroom.” In Race in the College Classroom: Pedagogy and Politics. Ed. Bonnie TuSmith and Maureen T. Reddy (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002). 140-152. This book won the 2002 American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Awards.
• “Introduction.” In Bold Words: A Century of Asian American Writing. Ed. Rajini Srikanth and Esther Iwanaga.(Rutgers University Press, 2001). xv-xxiv
• “White Women in Racialized Spaces: Introduction.” Co-authored with Samina Najmi. In White Women in Racialized Spaces: Literary Representations. Ed. Samina Najmi and Rajini Srikanth (SUNY Press, 2002). 1-26.
• “Ventriloquism in the Captivity Narrative: White Women Challenge European American Patriarchy.” In White Women in Racialized Spaces: Literary Representations. Ed. Samina Najmi and Rajini Srikanth (SUNY Press, 2002). 85-103.
• “The Komagata Maru: Memory and Mobilization Among the South Asian Diaspora in North America.” In Ed. Josephine Lee, Imogene Lim, and Yuko Matsukawa, Re/collecting Early Asian America: Readings in Cultural History. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002). 78-93.
• “Why I, A Woman of Color from India, Enjoy Teaching William Faulkner.” In Teaching Faulkner: Approaches and Methods. Ed. Robert W. Hamblin and Stephen Hahn. Greenwood Press, 2000. 31-43. Reprint of article originally published in 1996 in Mississippi Quarterly (see above).
• “South Asian American Literature: ‘Off the Turnpike’ of Asian America.” Rajini Srikanth and Lavina Shankar. In Postcolonial Theory and the United States: Race, Ethnicity, and Literature, Ed. Amritjit Singh and Peter Schmidt. University of Mississippi Press, 2000. 370-387.

Mississippi Quarterly, Amerasia Journal, Critical Mass: A Journal of Asian American Cultural Criticism; Asian Pacific American Journal; Journal of Asian American Studies; The Subcontinental; Pedagogy; The Comparatist, Frame, Special Issue on Human Rights and Literature

Want to book an appointment with Rajini? Email her at Rajini.Srikanth@umb.edu.