Carolyn Chen received her doctorate in Sociology from UC Berkeley in 2002. Prior to teaching at Berkeley, she was Associate Professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University, where she served as Director of the Asian American Studies Program. Professor Chen’s research focuses on two areas: work and religion in contemporary America, and religion, race, and ethnicity, especially among Asian Americans. She is author of ...
Ph.D., History, University of California, Los Angeles, June 1998 M.A., History, University of California, Los Angeles, 1993 B.A., History, cum laude, Pomona College, Claremont, 1991
At its core, my research program takes cultural studies approaches to theorize and narrate the interface between race, culture, knowledge, and state power. My work explores race as a “master category” (following Omi and Winant) and as a “medium” (following WJT Mitchell) by crafting comparative, relational, intersectional, and transnational analyses situated in localized and embodied contexts. By turning to the domain of culture, I investigate how power differentials become sedimented and contested in narrative, subject and identity formations, memory, and knowledge production.
Ph.D., Comparative Literature, New York University M.A., Comparative Literature, New York University B.A., English, University of Redlands
Office Hours:
Spring 2024: Tuesday and Thursday, 4:00-5:00 and by appointment
Program:Native American Studies, American studies, cultural studies, gender studies, Interdisciplinary Native American studies, literary and visual culture
I am an interdisciplinary historian who thinks about the relationship between race and empire. I engage in the fields of diplomatic history, Asian American Studies, and Critical SWANA Studies, and more specifically, Iranian Diaspora Studies.
Publications:
“Post-Revolutionary Iranians in the Philippines: Toward Decentering the United States in Asian/American Studies,” American Quarterly 77: 4 (2025), (forthcoming).
“After the Battle of Beverly Hills: U.S. Government Surveillance of Iranian International Students in the Cold War,” Diplomatic History 48:2 (...
Kathleen Whiteley (Wiyot descent) is an assistant professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies. She was born and raised in Eureka, California, and is a descendant of the Wiyot Tribe.
