Anne A. Cheng

Anne A. Cheng is a Professor of English at Princeton University, affiliated with the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies and the Committee on Film Studies. She is an interdisciplinary scholar focusing on aesthetics, politics, and race, with expertise in literary theory, critical race studies, film theory, feminist theory, and psychoanalysis. Her work bridges 20th-century American literature, visual culture, and Asian/African American literatures. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley, an M.A. from Stanford, and a B.A. from Princeton.

• B.A., English & Creative Writing, Princeton University
• M.A., English & Creative Writing, Stanford University
• Ph.D., Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley

Her research explores racial grief, modernist aesthetics, and the intersections of race, gender, and visual culture. Her books include The Melancholy of Race (2001), Second Skin (2013), and Ornamentalism (2019). Current projects address race, food studies, and animal studies.

Cheng leads initiatives like Critical Encounters—a series fostering art-theory dialogues—and the American Studies Collaboratory, a cross-disciplinary lab examining identity, citizenship, and cultural dynamics through law, arts, and social sciences.