Mohan Ambikaipaker

Ph.D., University of Texas - Austin
Director and Associate Professor of the World Cultures and Literatures Program

Department of Modern and Classical Languages
mambikai@Central.UH.EDU 

Biographical Summary

Mohan Ambikaipaker is associate professor and director of the World Cultures and Literatures program in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages. He is also the director of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) Honors program.

Dr. Ambikaipaker’s research and teaching is comprised of three strands (U.K., U.S. and Malaysia) and engages comparative research in theorizing connections between liberal-democratic political systems and the interlocking production of differential forms of racism. He also researches and publishes in the field of critical university studies, utilizing autoethnography and counter storytelling to critically examine the experiences of contemporary diversity discourse in U.S. higher education. His expertise has resulted in international media appearances, including as a featured speaker in the Emmy-nominated PBS show, Blackademics and as a commentator for the Malaysian current affairs program Consider This.

As an anthropologist and cultural studies scholar, he is the author of Political Blackness in Multiracial Britain (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). The monograph is an ethnographic study of the lived experiences of racial and state violence among South Asians and African Caribbean people in London and their efforts in constructing solidarity through antiracist struggle. Ambikaipaker has also published in journals such as Ethnic and Racial Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Communication, Culture and Critique, Journal for Intercultural Studies and Kalfou: A Journal of Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies. As an expert on the comparative study of global racisms (U.K., U.S. and Malaysia) he was a member of the Ford Foundation's convening panel for The Global Impacts of Anti-Blackness project.

Ambikaipaker is also a poet and has appeared in the Best Asian Poetry2021-22 anthology, edited by Sudeep Sen (Kitaab Press, 2022), Portside Review and Saaranga. His poetry has been translated into Italian, Mandarin, Tamil and Malay. He teaches a course on Global Politics and Poetry and has appeared frequently in the media, including as a featured speaker in the Emmy-nominated PBS show, Blackademics and as a commentator for the Malaysian current affairs program Consider This. He is an expert speaker on issues pertaining to global education and global current affairs."