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Sohi, Seema

Associate Professor

Positions

Research Areas research areas

Research

research overview

  • I am currently working on two book projects. The first, titled Race Radicals: Civil Rights and Immigration Reform during the Cold War, 1946-1968, foregrounds the transnational dimensions of U.S. Cold War history by situating the easing of restrictive immigration and naturalization laws in the United States from the late-1940s to the mid-1960s as part of a larger global history of freedom struggles, decolonization and the expansion of U.S. power and influence across the decolonizing world during the Cold War. It does so by examining the travels of some the country’s most prominent African American and Asian American musicians, intellectuals, and politicians across the decolonizing world during the early years of the Cold War, with a particular focus on the 1955 Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia. My exploration places geo-political events like Bandung and the actors of my study in the larger contexts of global decolonization, anticommunism, and Cold War racial geopolitics and foregrounds the international dimensions of U.S. civil rights reform and Cold War history. My second book project, titled 'We are Each Other's Magnitude and Bond': A History of Climate Justice from Warren County to the Sunrise Movement, is the first comprehensive history of the climate justice movement in the United States.

keywords

  • US history, Asian American studies, Asian American history, climate justice, race, empire, anticolonialism, transnationalism, radicalism, antiradicalism, borderlands, Cold War, decolonization, foreign relations, South Asian American Studies

Publications

selected publications

Teaching

courses taught

  • ETHN 3015 - Asian Pacific American Communities
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2019 / Spring 2020 / Spring 2023
    Covers the concepts, methods, and theories commonly used in community research, as well as substantive information on selected Asian/Pacific American communities. Emphasizes the ethical/political dimensions of community studies. Recommended prerequisite: ETHN 1025 or ETHN 2001.
  • ETHN 3501 - Theory/Methods/Writing in Ethnic Studies
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Spring 2019 / Fall 2019
    Preparation for empirical inquiry in Ethnic Studies. Emphasizes philosophy of social science and cultural studies. Students engage rigorous, theoretical concepts to understand research methods. Prepares students for writing a lengthy, cogent research paper. Recommended prerequisite: ETHN 2001.
  • ETHN 6000 - Foundations of Comparative Ethnic Studies
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2018 / Fall 2020 / Fall 2022
    Examines theories of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, colonialism and globalization, especially from the perspectives of communities most impacted by these categories and processes. This is the introductory course for graduate work in Comparative Ethnic Studies.
  • ETHN 6002 - Professionalization Seminar in Comparative Ethnic Studies
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2018
    Provides graduate students with professionalization skills, including how to prepare a national fellowship application, how to give a successful job talk, how to publish refereed journals and book volumes and how to approach the academic job market.
  • ETHN 6100 - Race and Citizenship in U.S. History and Culture
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Spring 2020 / Fall 2021 / Fall 2023
    Examines how the cultural and legal bounds of U.S. citizenship have been linked to race, gender, labor, class, and sexuality. Analyzes the experiences of racialized and gendered groups to explore the racial formations, exclusions and contradictions inherent with the institution of citizenship.
  • ETHN 6841 - Advanced Directed Readings in Ethnic Studies
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2018 / Spring 2019 / Spring 2020
    This is a graduate level directed readings course designed to expand student knowledge in a particular area of concentration with a broad interdisciplinary and comparative framework. These areas of concentration include work in Africana, American Indian, Asian American, Chicana and Chicano and Transnational/Hemispheric ethnic studies. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours.
  • FYSM 1000 - First Year Seminar
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2019 / Fall 2020
    Provide first year students with an immersive experience in an interdisciplinary topic that addresses current issues including social, technical and global topics. Taught by faculty from across campus, the course provides students with an opportunity to interact in small classes, have project based learning experiences and gain valuable communication skills. Seminar style classes focused on discussion and projects.

Background

International Activities