Birgit Brander Rasmussen

Birgit Brander Rasmussen serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of English, General Literature and Rhetoric at Binghamton University, where her scholarship bridges historical and contemporary studies of American literatures, colonial encounters, and Indigenous perspectives.

Her academic foundation includes a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Rasmussen's research explores the intersections of ancient literacies, new media, and Indigenous resurgence through multidisciplinary lenses:

• American Literatures across early to 21st-century contexts
• History of Writing systems and colonial literacy practices
• Digital Humanities and new media theory
• Early American captivity narratives and archival studies
• Food sovereignty and rematriation movements
• Medical Humanities in Indigenous health frameworks

Her award-winning monograph Queequeg’s Coffin: Indigenous Literacies and Early American Literature (Duke University Press, 2012) established foundational work in Indigenous literacies, while her forthcoming Signs of Resistance, Signs of Resurgence extends this research into new media. She co-edited The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness (Duke UP, 2001) and is co-editing a critical edition of Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative with Caroline Wigginton. Her work appears in top journals including PMLA, American Literature, and Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies.