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Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman

Assistant Professor
Ph.D., New York University

Research Interests

19th and 20th-century African American literature and culture; Gender and sexuality studies; Critical race theory; Multiethnic feminisms

Selected Publications

"Tracings: Black Female Figuration in Inner and Outer Space(s)." Callaloo, forthcoming.

"Simply a Menaced Boy: Analogizing Color, Undoing Dominance in James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room." African American Review, Vol. 41.3 (Spring 2007). 477-486.
*Darwin T. Turner Award for best essay in African American Review in 2008

"'The Strangest Freaks of Despotism': Queer Sexuality in Antebellum African American Slave Narratives." African American Review, Vol. 40.2 (Summer 2006). 223-237.
*Darwin T. Turner Award for best essay in African American Review in 2006

"White Disavowal, Black Enfranchisement, and the Homoerotic in William Faulkner's Light in August." The Faulkner Journal, Vol 22.1 (Fall 2006/Spring2007). 176-192.

“Harriet Ann Jacobs” Entry.  The Encyclopedia of Women in World History.  Ed. Bonnie G. Smith, Oxford University Press, 2007.

“Forgotten Readers by Elizabeth McHenry, A Review.” Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire, Spring 2003.

Current Projects

"The Erotics of Race: Identity, Political Longing, and Black Figuration"

Operating from the central premise that sexual ideologies fundamentally underlie racial definitions, this interdisciplinary study investigates the deployment of literary constructions of sexuality by African American authors to challenge popular theories of identity, pathology, national belonging, and racial difference in American culture.

Awards

Ford Foundation Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship for 2008-2009
Shortell-Holzer Fellowship, New York University, 2004-2005
Alice Richardson Award, New York University, 2005
Ford Foundation Fellowship, 2003-2004

Selected Courses Taught

The Postmodern African American Novel (ENG 167b)
American Encounters: Faulkner, Baldwin, Roth, Morrison (ENG 227b)
Sex and Race in the American Novel (ENG 87a)
U.S. Slavery and the Popular Imagination (USEM 59a)