David Kazanjian

David Kazanjian is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Arts & Sciences. He serves as Graduate Chair for the Comparative Literature and Literary Theory program (2024-25, 2026-2028), and has held prestigious fellowships including the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, 2026), Vartan Gregorian Center (NYPL, 2025), and Berlin Prize. His scholarship bridges transnational American studies, Armenian diaspora studies, political philosophy, and postcolonial theory.

• PhD in Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley
• M.A. in Critical Theory, University of Sussex
• B.A. in Modern Thought and Literature, Stanford University

Kazanjian's research examines dispossession through legal archives, transnational Armenian cultural politics, and 19th-century social movements. His work spans early American literature, Latin American colonialism, trauma theory, and Marxist analysis of freedom discourses.

Recent publications address dispossession in colonial New England/Yucatán, Armenian diaspora representation, and improvisational freedom practices in the Atlantic world. His editorial roles include co-editing NYU Press's America and the Long 19th Century series and Social Text journal.

• 2022 Penn Provost's Award for Outstanding Mentorship of Ph.D. Students
• Berlin Prize, American Academy of Berlin

As co-director of the Tepoztlán Institute for Transnational History of the Americas (2017-19) and affiliations with Penn's Gender & Sexuality Studies, Latin American Studies, and Middle East Center, Kazanjian fosters interdisciplinary scholarship. He teaches courses on capitalism theories, early American literature, and critical theory.

His lab and collective work includes the Tepoztlán Institute and Social Text editorial collective, focusing on transnational historical methods and diasporic cultural analysis.