Nishant Upadhyay

Nishant joined the Department of Ethnic Studies in Fall 2019. Upadhyay’s research and teaching focuses on settler colonialism and empire; intersections of race, caste, and indigeneity; queer and trans of color studies; and South Asian diaspora. They are the author of Indians on Indian Lands: Intersections of Race, Caste, and Indigeneity (University of Illinois Press, 2024). The book examines the interwoven and simultaneous areas of dominant Indian caste complicity in processes of settler colonialism, antiblackness, capitalism, brahminical supremacy, Hindu nationalism, and heteropatriarchy. Resource extraction in British Columbia in the 1970s through the 1990s and in present-day Alberta offers examples of spaces that illuminate the dispossession of Indigenous peoples and simultaneously reveals racialized, gendered, and casted labor formations. Upadhyay juxtaposes these extraction sites with examples of anticolonial activism and solidarities from Tkaronto. Analyzing silence on settler colonialism and brahminical caste supremacy, Upadhyay upends the idea of dominant caste Indian diasporas as racially victimized and shows that claiming victimhood denies a very real complicity in enforcing other power structures. Exploring stories of quotidian proximity and intimacy between Indigenous and South Asian communities, Upadhyay offers meditations on anticolonial and anti-casteist ways of knowledge production, ethical relationalities, and solidarities.

Upadhyay’s work has been in published in journals such as the American Quarterly, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies Journal, Cultural Studies, and Feminist Studies. They have edited a special issue of Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory (2014) on the Ghadar movement, and co-edited a special issue of Feral Feminisms (2015) on transnational feminist analysis of settler colonialism.

They received their PhD at York University, Toronto in the Graduate Program of Social and Political Thought in 2016. Their dissertation received the National Women’s Studies Association/University of Illinois Press First Book Award in 2018. Prior to joining CU Boulder, Nishant taught Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Northern Arizona University.

At CU Boulder, they teach within the areas of queer and trans of color studies, theories and foundations of ethnic studies, disability justice, US empire, and Asian American Studies. Their teaching grounds intersectional, transnational, abolitionist, and decolonial frameworks. In recognition of their teaching, they have received the Staff Integrity Award (2020), Best Should Teach Gold Award (2021), and Inaugural COMMrade Award by Communication Graduate Student Association (2024). In their classes, Upadhyay often assigns collective zine as the final project: Queer and Trans Futurisms: A BIPoC Visions Zine (Queer and Trans of Color Visions, Spring 2021), Guide to Pleasure Activism: Queer & Trans Visions (Queer and Trans of Color Visions, Spring 2022),  Disability Justice: A 2024 Zine (Disability Justice, Spring 2024). 

Publications

Single-authored Book

Indians on Indian Lands: Intersections of Race, Caste, and Indigeneity (University of Illinois Press, 2024).

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles (Selected)

“Against Trans Inclusion in the Military: A Trans of Color Abolitionist Critique”, co-authored with A. I. Gleisberg, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies (2023).

“Hindu Nation and its Queers: Caste, Islamophobia, and De/coloniality in India.” Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies (2020). Article translated and published in Malayalam by Campus Alive

“Making of “Model” South Asians on the Tar Sands: Intersections of Race, Caste, and Indigeneity.” Journal of the Critical Ethnic Studies (2019). 

“Can You Get More American Than Native American?”: (Racialized) Drag Americans, Settler Colonialism, and RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Cultural Studies (2019).

“Feminisms, Collaborations, Friendships: A Conversation,” co-authored with Richa Nagar, Özlem Aslan, Nadia Hasan, Omme Rahemtullah, and Begum Uzun.  Feminist Studies (2016). 

“Pinkwatching Israel, Whitewashing Canada: Queer (Settler) Politics and Indigenous Colonization in Canada”, co-authored with Michael C. Jackman. WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly (2014).

Edited Special Journal Issues

“Complicities, Connections, and Struggles: Critical Transnational Feminist Analysis of Settler Colonialism,” special guest co-editor of Feral Feminisms (2015), with Shaista Patel and Ghaida Moussa.

“Ghadar: A Living History,” special guest editor of Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory (2014).

Contributions to Edited Collections (Selected)

“‘Free them all’: A conversation on Trans Abolitionist Visions with Jordan Garcia”, in Resistance and Abolition in the Borderlands: Confronting Trump’s Reign of Terror,  eds. Arturo Aldama and Jessica Ordaz (University of Arizona Press, 2024).

“Trans/lating Queer, Annihilating Caste, Decolonizing Praxis,” co-authored with Sandeep Bakshi, in Routledge Handbook on Translation, Gender, and Feminism, eds. Luise von Flotow and Hala Kamal (Routledge Press, London: 2020).

“Brown Bodies, Borders, and Boats: Reading Tamil ‘Irregular Arrivants’ Through the History of the Komagata Maru," co-authored with Nadia Hasan, Sailaja Krishnamurti, Omme Rahemtullah, and Nayani Vathsaladevi-Thiyagarajah, in Charting Imperial Itineraries: Unmooring the Komagata Maru, eds. Rita K. Dhamoon, Davina Bhandar, Renisa Mawani, and Satwinder K. Bains (UBC Press, Vancouver: 2019). *Anthology received honorable mention from The Canadian Studies Network for the Best Edited Collection in 2020

Non-Peer Reviewed Journal Articles (Selected)

“Author’s Response” to the curated book forum on Indians on Indians Lands, Sikh Research Journal (2025).

“Brown/Caste Saviors and Education in India: A Comment on Shankar,” Cultural Anthropology (2022).

“Coloniality Of White Feminism and Its Transphobia: A Comment on Burt.” Feminist Criminology (2021).

“Geographies of Occupation in South Asia”, co-authored with Nosheen Ali, Mona Bhan, Sahana Ghosh, Hafsa Kanjwal, Zunaira Komal, Deepti Misri, Shruti Mukherjee, Sabia Varma, and Ather Zia. Feminist Studies (2019).

“Pernicious Continuities: Un/settling Violence, Race and Colonialism.” Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory (2013).

Non-Academic Publications (Selected)

“COVID Carnage in India: Politics of Hatred, Hindu Right, and Western Imperialism”, Boulder Weekly, (2021).

“On Atlanta and Boulder Shootings: Abolitionist Visions”, Boulder Weekly, (2021).

“Trans Liberation & Colonial Erasures,” Tilt West (2020).

“Queer Rights, Section 377, and Decolonizing Sexualities,” Decolonizing Sexualities Network Blog (2018).

Updated: April 2025