Rebecca Kumar

Rebecca Kumar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Spelman College, where she has taught since 2019. Her research and teaching focus on cinema and visual culture, particularly global queer and feminist film, alongside interdisciplinary work in comparative ethnic studies, psychoanalysis, and popular culture.

Education:

• Ph.D. in English, Emory University
• M.A. in English (Creative Writing emphasis), Georgia State University
• B.A. in English and American Literature, New York University

Research Interests span cinema studies, feminist and queer theory, postcolonial literature, Afro-Asian relations, and Brown studies. She also explores psychoanalysis, adaptation theories, and fan subcultures within popular media.

Courses Taught include SENG 437: Theorizing Brownness, SENG 312: Shakespeare on Film, SENG 301: Queer of Color Critique, SENG 362: Feminist Film Criticism, and SENG 369: Images of Women in the Media.

Publications include contributions to Thirty Years After: New Essays on Vietnam War Literature, Film, and Art, Early Modern Black Diaspora Studies, and the Barnard Center for Research on Women’s digital publication Scholar & Feminist Online. She co-edited and contributed to a special issue of Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media on the Netflix series Stranger Things.

She is currently completing a book on coming-of-age/coming-out films by Brown filmmakers post-9/11. Contact: rebecca.kumar@spelman.edu