Ashwiny O. Kistnareddy

Dr. Ashwiny O. Kistnareddy serves as an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics at the University of Cambridge and holds positions as Bye-Fellow and Director of Studies at Lucy Cavendish College. Her academic career is anchored in French studies with a transnational research focus spanning Francophone Africa, the Indian Ocean, and Southeast Asia.

Her research interrogates intersections of race, gender, migration, and postcolonial identity through critical theoretical frameworks including Derridean hospitality, Fanonian racial affect, and Spivakian subalternity. Key thematic concentrations include refugee studies (particularly childhood refugee experiences), diaspora formations, trauma narratives, and the politics of hybridity in women's writing. Her methodological approach combines close textual analysis with postcolonial, feminist, and critical race theories.

Analysis of her 15 most recent publications (2010-2021) reveals a consistent trajectory examining Francophone women's literary production across geographic contexts. Dominant themes include migrant masculinities, homelessness, foodways as community-building practices, and the haunting legacies of colonialism. Geographically, her work centers on Vietnamese, Rwandan, Mauritian, and West African diasporas, with increasing attention to comparative Franco-Anglo-Hispanophone perspectives since 2019.

Dr. Kistnareddy's research projects demonstrate significant real-world engagement, particularly her 'Refugee Children as a Critical Site of Intervention' initiative examining refugee experiences across Rwanda, Côte d'Ivoire, Haiti, Syria, Latin America, and Ukraine. Her collaborative work includes co-editing 'Catching Up with Time: Belatedness and Anachronies in Francophone Literature and Culture' (2022), reflecting active participation in scholarly networks. As Director of Studies at Lucy Cavendish College, she provides academic mentorship while maintaining research productivity through monograph publications and peer-reviewed articles.