Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond

Professor Emerita, Comparative Literature and Luso-Brazilian Studies Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley B.A., University of California, Berkeley; University of São Paulo (Brazil) Email: aisfahani@ucsd.edu

Research Interests
Critical Animal Studies, Comparative Race Studies, Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Cultures

Research Abstract
Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond is Associate Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and Luso-Brazilian Studies. Her publications on the legacies of African enslavement include a monograph, White Negritude: Race, Writing and Brazilian Cultural Identity; an edited volume, The Masters and the Slaves: Plantation Relations and Mestizaje in American Imaginaries; articles in Afro-Ásia and Hispania; and a chapter of The Middle East and Brazil: Perspectives on the New Global South. Isfahani-Hammond’s work in the field of Critical Animal Studies has appeared in Luso-Brazilian Review; e-misférica; The Brazilian Magazine of Animal Law; The Brazilian Animal Rights Magazine; Colonialism and Animality: Anti-Colonial Perspectives in Critical Animal Studies; Thinking/Writing the Animal: Essays about Zoopolitics and Biopolitics and the forthcoming Post-Anthropocentric Modulations in Brazilian Literature. Her current book project, “Home Sick,” blends theory with creative nonfiction to meditate on grief, caregiving, Islamophobia and the commodification of (human and other-than-human) animals. In addition to her scholarly publications, Isfahani-Hammond has contributed to popular media including The Conversation, The Advocate, CounterPunch, Ms. Magazine, Truthout, Persianesque: Iranian Magazine, Leia and the Folha de S. Paulo.

Isfahani-Hammond is a Founding Member of the North American Association for Critical Animal Studies and Senior Fellow at Sentient Media. She is a former J. William Fulbright Foundation Fellow, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow and recipient of the James H. Zumberge Faculty Research & Innovation Award. Before joining the faculty of the University of California, San Diego, Isfahani-Hammond taught at the University of Southern California, The University of Puerto Rico - Rio Piedras and the Federal University of Pernambuco - Recife (Brazil).