Dr. Nitasha Sharma
Assistant Professor of African American Studies & Asian American Studies Address: African American Studies Department 3-137 Crowe 1880 S. Campus Dr. Evanston, IL 60208-2209 Fax: 847-491-4803 Email: n-sharma@northwestern.edu

Courses:

Degree:

Ph.D. University of California at Berkeley

Current Research:

Claiming Space, Making Race: Second Generation South Asian American Hip Hop Artists , Dr. Sharma's ethnographic study of South Asian American hip hop artists analyzes how they use black popular culture to create and express alliances with Blacks as people of color. She examines Black and South Asian race relations in order to document how immigrants insert themselves into existing racial hierarchies and, in the process, develop new discourses of "race." During the summer of 2005, Professor Sharma conducted preliminary fieldwork in Trinidad on douglas--people of African and Indian descent--in order to expand her focus on Indian/Black relations beyond the U.S. and to develop her interest in mixed race studies.

Recent Awards:

Recent Publications:

"Down by Law: the effects and Responses of Copyright Restrictions on Sampling in Rap" (Journal of Political and Legal Anthropology, May 1998)

"Rotten Coconuts and Other Strange Fruit: A Slice of Hip Hop from the West Coast" (South Asian Magazine for Action and Reflection, November 2001)