Nisha Shanmugaraj
University of Colorado Boulder
Asian American rhetorics, cultural rhetorics, intersectional feminist rhetorics
Nisha Shanmugaraj (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Writing and Rhetoric with a joint appointment in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric and the English Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Working at the intersection of feminist rhetorics, cultural rhetorics, and Asian American rhetorics, her work illuminates and interrogates the “everyday rhetorics” of Asian/American women: how these rhetors employ and interpret communicative acts in their everyday lives. Using rhetorical field methods, Shanmugaraj explores how dominant discourses around race, gender, class, sexuality, and ability shape the lived experiences of Indian American women and how these diasporic subjects envision new rhetorical possibilities through imagined, embodied, affective, and interpersonal sites of meaning. She is currently working on a book project on how Indian American women construct narratives of “unlearning” internalized racism. She teaches courses on intersectional feminism, Asian American rhetorics, social change, and cultural rhetorics.

