معرفی
Kanika Batra is a Professor of English at Texas Tech University, where she teaches and conducts research in Postcolonial Studies, Globalization, Transnational Feminism, and Queer Studies. She serves as a faculty member in the Department of English within the College of Arts and Sciences, contributing significantly to comparative literature and interdisciplinary scholarship that bridges literary studies with social justice movements.
Dr. Batra earned her PhD in English from Loyola University Chicago in 2006, following advanced degrees from the University of Delhi in India. Her scholarly work emphasizes connections between literary forms and social movements, with particular attention to how marginalized communities create counterpublics and advance human rights through diverse forms of expression including magazines, newsletters, pamphlets, and digital communications.
Her research reveals consistent engagement with Black, Asian, and minority ethnic writing across the Global South, with methodological innovation that combines archival historical research, analysis of policy documents, close readings of activist publications, and conversations with activists. Dr. Batra's work demonstrates how literary forms function as crucial sites for imagining alternative social relations and political futures, particularly through non-biological kinship structures and transnational solidarities between movements in India, Jamaica, and South Africa.
Scientific Awards and Recognition
- Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Society and Culture, University of Alberta (2025)
- Speculative Play and Just Futurities Residency, Mellon Foundation-Indiana University (2025)
- Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies Research Fellowship (2024)
- TTU College of Arts and Sciences Excellence in Research Award in the Humanities (2021)
- National Women's Studies Association-Routledge Book Prize for Worlding Postcolonial Sexualities (2020)
- Abioseh Porter Best Article Prize of the African Literature Association (2018)
- Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Fellowship, Yale University (2018)
Dr. Batra has supervised numerous doctoral students whose research focuses on comparative literature, globalization, postcolonial studies, and feminist and queer studies. Her former students have secured academic positions at institutions across the United States, including Texas Tech University, Miami University, and Purchase College SUNY. She serves as an external examiner for MA and PhD research at universities in South Africa and India, and has mentored international scholars through Fulbright Foundation sponsorship. Current research projects include comparative studies of civil rights movements in the United States and South Africa, and a contracted volume for Cambridge University Press on feminist literary history.
Dr. Batra is actively engaged in professional service as a Delegate Assembly Member for the Modern Languages Association (2023-2026), and previously served as Chair of the Forum on South Asian and Diasporic Literatures for the MLA (2019-2020). She has contributed significantly to academic discourse through editorial work, conference presentations, and public-facing scholarship that bridges academic research with broader social justice conversations.
