About
I’m an Assistant Professor of Literature at Stevens Institute of Technology.
My scholarly work and interests span the fields of Science Fiction Studies, African American and Global Anglophone Literature, Postcolonial Studies, and Queer Theory.
I began my university career at Fergusson College in Pune, India, before studying at the universities of Freiburg, where I earned a Bachelor’s in English and American Studies, and Berlin, where I was a Rosa Luxemburg scholar and received a Master’s in American Studies.
In 2021-2022, I was a Mellon-funded Public Humanities Fellow at the Museum of the City of New York and served on the Board of Directors of the American Comparative Literature Association.
You can follow me on the Humanities Commons Mastodon instance (
@smaran@hcommons.social).
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles
2021. “
Octavia Butler and the Settler Colonial Speculative: Xenogenesis and Planetary Loss.”
Our Shared Planet. Special issue of
American Studies.
2017. “
Meine Freiheit, die es so noch nicht gibt: Alexander Weheliye’s Habeas Viscus.”
Interventions.
2016. “
Cityzenship: Rightful Presence and the Urban Commons.”
Affective Citizenship. Special issue of
Citizenship Studies. (with Wanda Vrasti)
Translations
2022 [2020]. Che Gossett. “
Abolitionistische Alternativen: Schwarzer Radikalismus und die Verweigerung von Reform.” In
Abolitionismus: Ein Reader. Eds. Daniel Loick and Vanessa E. Thompson. Berlin: Suhrkamp.
2021 [1930]. M.P.T. Acharya. “
Militarism in Asia: The Obligations of European Workers.” In
Barricade: A Journal of Translation and Anti-Fascism.
2018 [2013]. Zülfukar Çetin. “
The Dynamics of Queer Politics and Gentrification in Berlin.” In
The Queer Intersectional in Contemporary Germany: Essays on Racism, Capitalism and Sexual Politics. Ed. Christopher Sweetapple.
Book Reviews
2022.
Review of
Black Utopias: Speculative Life and the Music of Other Worlds, by Jayna Brown.
The Black Scholar.
2021.
Review of
A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler, by Lynell George.
Harvard Review.
2020. “
Utopia in Black.” Review of
Black Utopia: The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism, by Alex Zamalin.
Social Text.
2020.
Review of
Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction, by Sami Schalk.
Journal of Postcolonial Writing.
2019. “
Participatory Colonialism.” Review of
Prairie Rising: Indigenous Youth, Decolonization, and the Politics of Intervention, by Jaskiran Dhillon.
Critical Ethnic Studies.
Public Writing, etc.
2022. “
From Pride March to Museum Exhibit.”
Museum of the City of New York Blog.
2020. “
No Exit: International Students and the Pandemic.”
L.A. Review of Books.
2016. “Ausländerbehörde” (Poem).
HYSTERIA.
2016. “
Life Writing – Writing Lives. Engaging Knowledge, Time and Self.”
H-Soz-Kult. (with Heike Liebau)
2015. “
Concretising the Terms of Debate: Islam and Secularism in the German Press.”
Orient Bulletin.
2015. “
Erinnerungsorte der asiatischen Diaspora.”
Erinnerungsorte in Berlin zu vergessenen Geschichten. Spec. issue of
Lernen aus der Geschichte. (with Noa Ha)
2014. “‘
Don’t Be Evil.’ Model Minorities in Colourblind ‘Schland.”
Asian Germany. Spec. issue of
Heimatkunde. Ed. Kien Nghi Ha.
