"By working with others in grassroots struggles to support the world-making practices of marginalized people—such as undocumented sex and care workers—we can learn what questions to ask that can break the everyday scholarly reflexes that reproduce unequal social power and instead build up grassroots social forces for transformation.”
Chandan Reddy is associate professor in the Departments of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies and the Comparative History of Ideas at the University of Washington, Seattle, and he is affiliate faculty in South Asia Studies and Geography. He is currently coeditor in chief with C. Riley Snorton (U of Chicago) of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. His book, Freedom with Violence: Race, Sexuality, and the US State (2011), from Duke University Press, won the Alan Bray Memorial Book Award for Queer Studies from the American Studies and Modern Language Associations as well as the Best Book in Cultural Studies from the Association for Asian American Studies, both in 2013.
In Freedom with Violence, Chandan Reddy examines the complex relationship between freedom and violence in the context of race and sexuality in the US. The book argues that violence has been used as a tool to maintain power and control over marginalized groups, including people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.
The article co-authored with Jodi Melamed Using Liberal Rights to Enforce Racial Capitalism in the July 2019 issue of Insights from the Social Sciences examines the tension between liberal rights and racial capitalism. Chandan Reddy argues that while liberal rights frameworks have been effective in protecting individual rights, they have limitations when it comes to addressing systemic inequalities perpetuated by racial capitalism.
Economies of Dispossession is a special issue of Social Text (June 2018) coedited by Reddy, Byrd, Goldstein, and Melamed. It explores the intersections of indigeneity, race, and capitalism, examining how these forces shape and are shaped by each other. The issue brings together scholars from various disciplines to analyze the economic dimensions of dispossession and its impact on marginalized communities.
"Justice, Coloniality, Repair" is a thought-provoking title for a colloquium that delves into the complexities of justice, colonialism, and repair in various contexts. By examining the intersections of these concepts, the colloquium aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the challenges and opportunities for justice in the face of colonial legacies and ongoing systemic injustices.
What to learn more about the Freedom Scholars?
Questions about the Freedom Scholar awards can be sent to freedomscholars@caseygrants.org.
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR THE FREEDOM SCHOLAR AWARDS HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY THE INATAI FOUNDATION.
