Pritha Prasad
- Assistant Professor
Contact Info
Personal Links
Biography —
Dr. Prasad’s research broadly explores how antiracist movements and rhetorics have historically shaped rhetoric, writing, and English studies. Her current book in progress, Rematerializing Race/isms: Rhetoric After Ferguson, mobilizes Black feminisms and women of color feminisms to consider how the heightened visibility of racialized violences after the Ferguson Uprising, #BlackLivesMatter, and Trump demand a critical reorientation of rhetoric, writing, and English studies’ intellectual and professional paradigms. Dr. Prasad is also currently co-authoring a second book with Dr. Louis M. Maraj (U. British Columbia) entitled The Benevolent Gaslight: A Technology of Whiteness, a study that explores how U.S. rhetorics of whiteness have systematically and historically situated racial trauma and injury as teaching/learning moments in the teleological pursuit of collective progress. This project explores this phenomenon across humanities disciplines/epistemologies, educational history, university race management, and popular culture.
Education —
Specialization
Rhetorical theory and history, composition theory and history, critical race and ethnic studies, feminist studies, queer studies, cultural theory, digital media studies, and critical university studies
Research —
Rhetoric and composition, critical race studies, feminist and queer studies (particularly Black feminisms and queer of color critique), and cultural rhetorics
Teaching —
Dr. Prasad teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in rhetorical theory and history, composition theory and history, cultural rhetorics, and critical university studies.
Selected Publications —
“Coalitional Refusals: Transformative Justice Beyond Repair,” Peitho, vol. 25, no. 4 (Summer 2023 issue). Co-authored with Brynn Fitzsimmons (forthcoming)
“‘I Am Not Your Teaching Moment’: The Benevolent Gaslight and Epistemic Violence,” College Composition and Communication, vol. 74, no. 2, 2023, pp. 322-51. Co-authored with Louis M. Maraj. Winner of the 2023 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Richard Braddock Award.
“Affective Solidarity and Trauma-Informed Possibilities: A Comparative Analysis of the Classroom and the Clinic” in Trauma-Informed Pedagogy (2023), edited by Ernest Stromberg, Routledge. Co-authored with Kriti Prasad (U. Minnesota School of Medicine).
“(Anti)Racist World-Makings in the University: Reinventing Student Work” in Inventing the Discipline: Student Work in Composition Studies (2022), edited by Stacey Waite and Peter W. Moe, Parlor Press.
“Backchannel Pedagogies: Unsettling Racial Teaching Moments and White Futurity” Present Tense, vol. 9, no. 2, 2022.
“‘Coalition is Not a Home’: From Idealized Coalitions to Livable Lives.” Spark: A 4C4Equality Journal, vol. 3, 2021.
“Beyond Rights as Recognition: Black Twitter and Posthuman Coalitional Possibilities,” Prose Studies, vol. 38, no. 1, 2016, pp 50-73.