Himanee Gupta-Carlson is an associate professor with Empire State College. A former journalist, she completed her master’s in American Studies and her doctorate in Political Science at the University of Hawai‘i. Questions of diversity, inclusion, and justice play a central role in her teaching and her research. These interests are reflected not only in the courses on American History, Asian American histories, community sustainability, and Hip Hop as an emancipatory practice that she teaches but also in her many publications and community activites. These include her book Muncie, India(na): Middletown and Asian America (University of Illinois Press, 2018); her ongoing research and teaching on Hip Hop as a community building and political organizing practice; her hands-on work in running a small farm with her husband Jim; her development of online curricula using open educational resources; and her passionate involvement with farmers' markets, food pantries, and other food and farming organizations in the Saratoga area. She currently is writing a book A Hip Hop of Food that seeks to offer a philosophical yet pragmatic approach to social justice through food security at a grassroots level. She is looking forward to using her 2019-2020 sabbatical as an opportunity to finish the book and further widen her involvement with food security movements on a local and regional level.
(Photo credit: Jim Gupta-Carlson)
Degrees
- B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University
- M.A. in American Studies from University of Hawaii-Manoa
- Ph.D. in Political Science from University of Hawaii-Manoa
Publications
- Book. 2018. Muncie, India(na): Middletown and Asian America, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press).
- Essays and Commentaries · “Winter’s Welcoming Call to Rest,” The Weave News (January 25, 2021). · “How to Teach an American Inauguration,” Zócalo Public Square (January 20, 2021). · “Finding Space to Breathe in a Volatile World,” All About Mentoring (Autumn, 2020). · “Farming, Land Use, and Food Sovereignty,” The Weave News (October 2020). · “A Shy Kiss and the Beginning of a New Life in America,” Tides: Magazine of the South Asian American Digital Archive (August 2020). · “Dismantling the Model Minority Myth and Creating a New Multiracial Society in Never Have I Ever,” The Anxious Bench (June 2020). · “Healing the Land, Healing the Self,” Political Theology Network (June 2020). · “Herding the Goats at Squashville Farm,” Zócalo Public Square (May 2020). · “Reaping the Riches of What One Sows,” Simply Saratoga (Holiday Issue, 2019, 18-19). · “Hanging Out at the Mall with Farmers,” Simply Saratoga (Holiday Issue, 2019, 120-121). · “A Farmers Market Café of Chefs,” Simply Saratoga (Fall, 2019, 58-63). · “When Farming is Not a Livelihood But a Life,” Simply Saratoga (Summer 2019, 172-173). · “Teaching, Mentoring and Activism Under Trump.” All About Mentoring, (Winter 2018), with Lisa Parkins and Anastasia Pratt. · “Harvesting Wisdom: Lessons from Farm Life,” Healthy Saratoga (Spring 2017, 20-21). · “Getting Your Hands Dirty: A True Growing Experience,” Connections: The Empire State College Magazine (Summer 2016, 51-53). · “Building Bridges Through Technology,” Race Matters in the Classroom, Wabash Center for Theology and Religion Studies, (2015). · Lived Realities of Race,” Race Matters in the Classroom, Wabash Center for Theology and Religion Studies, (2014). · “From Adjunct to Assistant Professor: Some Thoughts on One’s Scholarly Mission,” Revisiting Boyer: Exploring the Scholarly Work of Empire State College Faculty, (2011, 9-11). · “Hip Hop, World Peace, and the Women of Seattle,” Crosscut Public Media (2010). · “A Hip Hop Battle That’s All About Peace and Love,” Crosscut Public Media (2010). · “Not My America, Either,” Cross Current Journal of Humanities (2009).
- Peer-reviewed articles 2016. “Re-Imagining the Nation: Storytelling and Social Media in the Obama Campaigns,” PS: Political Science & Politics 49:1, pp. 171-175. 2010. “Planet B-Girl: Community Building and Feminism in Hip-Hop,” New Political Science: A Journal of Politics and Culture, 32:4, pp. 515-529. 2008. ‘Everybody Has a Right to Prayer and Well, We Live Here’: The National Day of Prayer Controversy in Muncie, Indiana, and the Limits of Tolerance, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 33:4, pp. 915-939.
- Book chapters 2017. “The Cipher and Empire: Teaching and Mentoring Through Hip Hop,” Alan Mandell and Katherine Jelly, eds. Principles, Practices, and Creative Tensions in Higher Education: One Institution’s Struggle to Sustain Itself (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers), pp. 149-163. 2015. “Internationalizing U.S. Students with Hip-Hop and Social Networks,” Nataly Tcherepashenets, ed. Globalizing Online: Telecollaboration, Internationalization and Social Justice (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishers), pp. 235-255. 2003. “Staking a Claim on American-ness: Hindu Temples in the United States,” Jane Iwamura and Paul Spickard, eds., Revealing the Sacred in Asian and Pacific America (New York: Routledge) pp. 193-208.
- Book reviews From the Middle Passage to Black Lives Matter: Ancestral Writing as a Pedagogy of Hope by Marva McClean (New York, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2019), Journal of Autoethnography 2:2 (Spring 2021), pp. 271-74. · Critical Pedagogy in the 21st Century: A New Generation of Scholars, Curry, Stephenson Malott and Bradley Porfilio, eds. (Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age Publishing, 2011), Teaching Theology & Religion 16:3 (2013), pp. 289-90. · Computer Games & Instruction, Sigmund Tobias and J.D. Fletcher, eds., (Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age Publishing, 2011), Teaching Theology & Religion 16:1 (2013), p. e33. · Teaching Sustainability/Teaching Sustainably, Kirsten Allen-Bartels and Kelly A. Parker, eds. (Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2012), Teaching Theology & Religion 16:1 (2013), pp. e71-e73.