NishantUpadhyay

  • Assistant Professor
  • Associate Chair of Graduate Studies
  • ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES
  • GENDER AND SEXUALITY STUDIES
Dr. Nishant Upadhyay
Address

Pronouns: they / them / theirs

Office Hours

Education

PhD, Social and Political Thought, York University, Canada, 2016
MA, Social and Political Thought, York University, Canada, 2010
BA(H), Economics & Development Studies, Queen’s University, Canada, 2007

Research Interests

Critical Ethnic Studies, Asian (North) American Studies, Queer & Trans of Color Critiques, Intersectional & Transnational Feminisms, Anti-colonial & Decolonial Thinking, Transnational Settler Colonialisms (US, Canada, India),South Asian Studies, Anti-Caste Critiques

Affiliations

Women & Gender Studies
LGBTQ Studies
Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies
Center for Asian Studies

Nishant joined the Department of Ethnic Studies in Fall 2019.Upadhyay’s research and teaching focuses on settler colonialism and empire; intersections of race, caste, and indigeneity; queer and trans of color studies; and South Asian diaspora. They are the author of(University of Illinois Press, 2024).The book examines the interwoven and simultaneous areas of dominant Indian caste complicity in processes of settler colonialism, antiblackness, capitalism, brahminical supremacy, Hindu nationalism, and heteropatriarchy. Resource extraction in British Columbia in the 1970s through the 1990s and in present-day Alberta offers examples of spaces that illuminate the dispossession of Indigenous peoples and simultaneously reveals racialized, gendered, and casted labor formations. Upadhyay juxtaposes these extraction sites with examples of anticolonial activism and solidarities from Tkaronto. Analyzing silence on settler colonialism and brahminical caste supremacy, Upadhyay upends the idea of dominant caste Indian diasporas as racially victimized and shows that claiming victimhood denies a very real complicity in enforcing other power structures. Exploring stories of quotidian proximity and intimacy between Indigenous and South Asian communities, Upadhyay offers meditations on anticolonial and anti-casteist ways of knowledge production, ethical relationalities, and solidarities.

Upadhyay’s work has been in published in journals such as theAmerican Quarterly,Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies,Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies Journal, Cultural Studies,andFeminist Studies.They have edited a special issue ofSikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory(2014) on the Ghadar movement, and co-edited a special issue ofFeral Feminisms(2015) on transnational feminist analysis of settler colonialism.

They received their PhD at York University, Toronto in the Graduate Program of Social and Political Thought in 2016. Their dissertation received thein 2018.Prior to joining 91PORN, Nishant taught Women's and Gender Studies atthe University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Northern Arizona University.

At 91PORN, they teach within the areas of queer and trans of color studies, theories and foundations of ethnic studies, disability justice, US empire, and Asian American Studies. Their teaching grounds intersectional, transnational, abolitionist, and decolonial frameworks. In recognition of their teaching, they have received theStaff Integrity Award (2020),Best Should Teach Gold Award (2021), andInaugural COMMrade Award by Communication Graduate Student Association (2024). In their classes, Upadhyay often assigns collective zine as the final project: (Queer and Trans of Color Visions, Spring 2021), (Queer and Trans of Color Visions, Spring 2022), (Disability Justice, Spring 2024).

Publications

Single-authored Book

(University of Illinois Press, 2024).

Peer-reviewed JournalArticles(Selected)

“Against Trans Inclusion in the Military: A Trans of Color Abolitionist Critique”, co-authored with A. I. Gleisberg,Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies(2023).

“Hindu Nation and its Queers: Caste, Islamophobia, and De/coloniality in India.” Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies (2020). Article translated and published in Malayalam by

“Making of “Model” South Asians on the Tar Sands: Intersections of Race, Caste, and Indigeneity.”Journal of the Critical Ethnic Studies(2019).

“Can You Get More American Than Native American?”: (Racialized) Drag Americans, SettlerColonialism, andRuPaul’s Drag Race.”Cultural Studies (2019).

“Feminisms, Collaborations, Friendships: A Conversation,”co-authored with Richa Nagar,ÖzlemAslan, Nadia Hasan, Omme Rahemtullah, and Begum Uzun. Feminist Studies (2016).

“Pinkwatching Israel, Whitewashing Canada: Queer (Settler) Politics and IndigenousColonization in Canada”, co-authored with Michael C. Jackman.WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly (2014).

Edited Special Journal Issues

“Complicities, Connections, and Struggles: Critical Transnational Feminist Analysisof Settler Colonialism,” special guest co-editor ofFeral Feminisms (2015),with Shaista Patel and Ghaida Moussa.

“Ghadar: A Living History,” special guest editorofSikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory(2014).

Contributions to Edited Collections (Selected)

“‘Free them all’: A conversation on Trans Abolitionist Visions with Jordan Garcia”, in Resistance and Abolition in the Borderlands: Confronting Trump’s Reign of Terror,eds. Arturo Aldama and Jessica Ordaz (University of Arizona Press, 2024).

“Trans/lating Queer, Annihilating Caste, Decolonizing Praxis,” co-authored with Sandeep Bakshi, in Routledge Handbook on Translation, Gender, and Feminism, eds. Luise von Flotow and Hala Kamal (Routledge Press, London: 2020).

“Brown Bodies, Borders, and Boats: Reading Tamil ‘Irregular Arrivants’ Throughthe History of theKomagata Maru,"co-authored withNadia Hasan, Sailaja Krishnamurti, OmmeRahemtullah, and Nayani Vathsaladevi-Thiyagarajah, inCharting Imperial Itineraries: Unmooring the Komagata Maru,eds. Rita K.Dhamoon, Davina Bhandar, Renisa Mawani, and Satwinder K. Bains (UBC Press, Vancouver:2019). *Anthology received honorable mention from The Canadian Studies Network for the Best Edited Collection in 2020

Non-Peer Reviewed Journal Articles (Selected)

“Author’s Response” to the curated book forum onIndians on Indians Lands, Sikh Research Journal(2025).

“Brown/Caste Saviors and Education in India: A Comment on Shankar,” Cultural Anthropology(2022).

“Coloniality Of White Feminism and Its Transphobia: A Comment on Burt.” Feminist Criminology (2021).

“Geographies of Occupation in South Asia”, co-authored with Nosheen Ali, Mona Bhan, Sahana Ghosh, Hafsa Kanjwal, Zunaira Komal, Deepti Misri, Shruti Mukherjee, Sabia Varma, and Ather Zia. Feminist Studies (2019).

“Pernicious Continuities: Un/settling Violence, Race and Colonialism.” Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory (2013).

Non-Academic Publications (Selected)

“COVID Carnage in India: Politics of Hatred, Hindu Right, and Western Imperialism”, , (2021).

“On Atlanta and 91PORN Shootings: Abolitionist Visions”, , (2021).

“Trans Liberation & Colonial Erasures,” (2020).

“Queer Rights, Section 377, and DecolonizingSexualities,” (2018).

Updated: April 2025