Ranjana Khanna | Scholars@Duke

Ranjana Khanna
Professor of English

Ranjana Khanna is Professor of English, Women's Studies, and the Literature Program at Duke University. She works on Anglo- and Francophone Postcolonial theory and literature, and Film, Psychoanalysis, and Feminist theory. She has published widely on transnational feminism, psychoanalysis, and postcolonial and feminist theory, literature, and film. She is the author of Dark Continents: Psychoanalysis and Colonialism (Duke University Press, 2003) and Algeria Cuts: Women and Representation 1830 to the present (Stanford University Press, 2008.) She has published in journals like Differences, Signs, Third Text, Diacritics, Screen, Art History, positions, SAQ, Feminist Theory, and Public Culture. Her current book manuscripts in progress are called: Asylum: The Concept and the Practice and Technologies of Unbelonging.

Office Hours

Tuesday & Thursday 1:40 p.m. - 2:40 p.m.

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Professor of English, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2008
Director, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, University Institutes and Centers 2018
Professor of Literature, Literature, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2008
Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2018

Contact Information

304GH Allen Bldg, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708
Duke Box 90015, Durham, NC 27708
rkhanna@duke.edu (919) 668-2548

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., University of York (United Kingdom) 1993
- B.A., University of York (United Kingdom) 1988
Duke Appointment History
- Director of the Program in Women, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2011 - 2015
- Margaret Taylor Smith Director of the Women's Studies Program, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2007 - 2011
- Director, Undergraduate Studies in the Women, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2009 - 2011
- Director of Graduate Studiesfor Women, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2010 - 2011
- Associate Professor of English, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2004 - 2008
- Associate Professor of Literature, Literature, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2004 - 2008
- Associate Professor in Women's Studies, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2004 - 2006
- Assistant Professor of English, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2000 - 2004
- Assistant Professor of Literature, Literature, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2002 - 2004
- Assistant Professor, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2003 - 2004
Recognition
In the News
- JUN 17, 2019
  
  Duke Welcomes NCCU, Durham Tech, Liberal Arts Collaborators to Humanities Unbounded initiative
- JUL 13, 2017
  
  Ranjana Khanna Appointed to Lead Franklin Humanities Institute
- SEP 25, 2014
  
  Same-Sex Marriage: A Comparative Look at North Carolina and France
Awards & Honors
- Radcliffe Institute Fellowship. Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. 2006
Expertise
Subject Headings
- Affect
- Anxiety
- Justice
Global Scholarship
- Expertise
Research
Selected Grants
- Seminars in Historical, Global, and Emerging Humanities awarded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation 2014 - 2018
- Promoting International Perspectives at the Feminist Theory Workshop awarded by Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation 2009 - 2010
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Books
  - Khanna, R. Technologies of Unbelonging (In preparation), 2009.
  - Khanna, R. Asylum: The Concept and the Practice (In preparation), 2009.
  - Khanna, R. Algeria Cuts: Women and Representation, 1830 to the Present, 2007.
  - Khanna, R. Dark Continents: Psychoanalysis and Colonialism. Duke University Press, 2003.
- Academic Articles
  - Khanna, R. “Touching the corpse: Reading Sinan Antoon.” New Literary History 51, no. 2 (March 1, 2020): 401–18. https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2020.0024.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, Ranjana. “Stefania Pandolfo, Knot of the Soul: Madness, Psychoanalysis, Islam.” Psychoanalysis and History 21, no. 3 (December 2019): 369–72. https://doi.org/10.3366/pah.2019.0313.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “Speculation; Or, living in the face of the intolerable.” Journal of Middle East Women’S Studies 14, no. 1 (March 1, 2018): 109–15. https://doi.org/10.1215/15525864-4297159.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “Stranger.” New Literary History 49, no. 2 (March 1, 2018): 279–84. https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2018.0018.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, Ranjana. “Stranger.” New Literary History 49, no. 2 (2018): 279–84.
    Link to Item
  - Khanna, R. “On the name, ideation, and sexual difference.” Differences 27, no. 2 (September 1, 2016): 62–78. https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-3621709.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “Fabric, skin, honte-ologie,” January 1, 2014, 159–79. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315787626.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “The lumpenproletariat, the subaltern, the mental asylum.” South Atlantic Quarterly 112, no. 1 (December 1, 2013): 129–43. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-1891287.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “Touching, unbelonging, and the absence of affect.” Feminist Theory 13, no. 2 (August 1, 2012): 213–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700112442649.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “Racial France, or the melancholic alterity of postcolonial studies.” Public Culture 23, no. 1 (December 1, 2011): 191–99. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-2010-022.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “Unbelonging: In motion.” Differences 21, no. 1 (August 20, 2010): 109–23. https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-2009-020.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “Hope, Demand and the Perpetual,” 2010.
  - Khanna, R. “Disposability.” Differences 20, no. 1 (August 18, 2009): 181–98. https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-2008-021.
    Full Text
  - Mansoor, Jaleh, ed. “The Age of Asylum: Mona Hatoum,” 2009.
  - Khanna, R. “Indignity.” Positions 16, no. 1 (January 1, 2008). https://doi.org/10.1215/10679847-2007-011.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “From Rue Morgue to Rue des Iris.” Screen 48, no. 2 (December 1, 2007): 237–44. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjm021.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “Indignity.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30, no. 2 (March 1, 2007): 257–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870601143943.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “Post-Palliative.” Postcolonial Text 2 (2006).
  - Khanna, R. “Asylum.” Texas International Law Journal 41 (2006): 471–90.
  - Khanna, R. “On asylum and genealogy.” South Atlantic Quarterly 104, no. 2 (December 1, 2005): 371–80. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-104-2-371.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “Signatures of the Impossible.” Duke Journal of Law and Gender Policy, 2004.
  - Khanna, R. “Latent Ghosts and the Manifesto.” Art History: Journal of the Association of Art Historians 26 (April 2003): 244–86.
  - Khanna, R. “Baya (translation).” Art History: Journal of the Association of Art Historians 26 (April 2003): 287–287.
  - Khanna, R. “Le Combat de Baya (translation).” Art History: Journal of the Association of Art Historians 26 (April 2003): 288–89.
  - Khanna, R. “Frames, contexts, community, justice.” Diacritics 33, no. 2 (January 1, 2003): 11–41. https://doi.org/10.1353/dia.2005.0022.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “Taking a stand for Afghanistan: Women and the left.” Signs 28, no. 1 (2002): 464–65. https://doi.org/10.1086/340873.
    Full Text Link to Item
  - Khanna, R. “The Ambiguity of Ethics: Specters of Colonialism.” Edited by Elisabeth Bronfen and Misha Kavka, January 2001.
  - Khanna, R. “Review of Emily Apter’s Continental Drift: From National Characterisitics to Virtual Subjects.” (U of Chicago P 1999), Mlq 61 (December 2000): 692–95.
  - Khanna, R. “Continental Drift: From National Characters to Virtual Subjects.” Modern Language Quarterly 61, no. 4 (December 1, 2000): 692–96. https://doi.org/10.1215/00267929-61-4-692.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “Cartographies of Scholarship.” Area & International Studies Curriculum: Integration Book, January 2000.
  - Khanna, R. “Review of Female Subjects in Black and White: Race, Psychoanalysis, Feminism.” Edited by Elisabeth Abel, Barbara Christian, and Helene Moglen U of California P. 1997. Signs 26 (2000): 262–65.
  - Khanna, R. “The battle of Algiers and the Nouba of the women of Mont Chenoua: From third to fourth cinema.” Third Text 12, no. 43 (December 1, 1998): 13–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/09528829808576731.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “From Third to Fourth Cinema.” Third Text, 1998, 13–32.
  - Khanna, R. “’Araby’ (Dubliners): Women’s Time and the Time of the Nation.” Edited by Ellen Carol Jones. Joyce, Feminism, Colonialism/Postcolonialism/European Joyce Studies, 1998, 81–101.
- Book Sections
  - Khanna, R. “The stranger at the gate: An interview.” In Against Life, 257–67, 2016.
  - Khanna, R. “On the right to sleep, perchance to dream.” In A Concise Companion to Psychoanalysis, Literature, and Culture, 351–66, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118610169.ch19.
    Full Text
  - Khanna, R. “Hope, Demand and the Perpetual.” In Unconscious Dominions: Psychoanalysis, Colonial Trauma, and Global Sovereignties. Duke University Press, 2010.
  - Khanna, R. “Isaac Julien: Paradise Omeros.” In Gerst Foundation Catalogue, 2010.
  - Khanna, R. “Psychoanalysis before 1966.” In Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literary Theory, 2010.
  - Khanna, R. “The Age of Asylum: Mona Hatoum.” In Communities of Sense, edited by Jaleh Mansoor. Duke University Press, 2009.
  - Khanna, R. “Fabric, Skin, Honte-ologie.” In Shame and the Visual Arts. Routledge, 2008.
  - Khanna, R., and Srinivas Aravamudan. “Interview with Fredric Jameson.” In Ed. Ian Buchanan, Fredric Jameson, Jameson on Jameson: Conversations on Cultural Marxism, 203–40. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007, 2007.
  - Khanna, R. “Frames, Contexts, Community, Justice.” In Meaning, Frame, and Metaphor, edited by Joyce Goggim and Michael Burke, 149–71. University of Amsterdam Press, 2003.
  - Khanna, R., Barbara Burton, Nouray Ibryamova, Dyan Ellen Mazurana, and S Lily Mendoza. “Cartographies of Scholarship: The Ends of Nation-States, International Studies, and the Cold War.” In Encompassing Gender: Integrating International Studies and Women’s Studies, edited by Mary M. Lay, Janice Monk, and Deborah S. Rosenfelt, 21–45. The Feminist Press, 2002.
  - Khanna, R. “The Experience of Evidence: Language, Law and the Mockery of Justice.” In Algeria in and Out of French, edited by Anne Berger. Cornell UP, 2001.
  - Khanna, R. “The Construction of the Dark Continent: Agency as Autobiography.” In Women’s Lives/Women’s Times, edited by Treva Broughton and Linda Anderson, 103–20. SUNY, 1997.
  - Khanna, R., and Karen Engle. “Forgotten History: Myth, Empathy, and Assimilated Culture.” In Feminism and the New Democracy, edited by Jodie Dean, 67–80. Sage Press, 1997.
  - Khanna, R. “Feminism and Psychoanalysis: Repetition, Repression and the Unconscious.” In New Directions in Cognitive Science, edited by Pauli Pylkko and Paavo Pylkannen, 358–67. Finnish Artificial Intellegence Society, 1995.
- Other Articles
  - Khanna, R. “Participant in MLA Radio Program “What’s the Word?” on Gillo Pontecorvo’s Battle of Algiers,” 2006.
  - Khanna, R. ““From Exile to Asylum” Audio section of Bloomsday 100 created by The James Joyce Center, Bloomsday 100, and Hyperfecto CD-Rom 2005,” 2005.
Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses
- ENGLISH 493: Research Independent Study 2021
- ENGLISH 497: Distinction Critical Research Independent Study 2021
- ENGLISH 890S: Special Topics Seminar 2021
- LIT 495: Honors Thesis I 2021
- LIT 496: Honors Thesis II 2021
- ENGLISH 490T: Tutorial (Area I, II, or III as determined by instructor) 2020
- ENGLISH 891: Special Readings 2020
- GSF 860S: Major Figures in Feminist Thought 2020
- LIT 495: Honors Thesis I 2020
- LIT 760S: Major Figures in Feminist Thought 2020
- ENGLISH 890S: Special Topics Seminar 2019
- LIT 890S: Seminars in Literature 2019
Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
Presentations & Appearances
Service to the Profession
- Duke Reads Participant. January 26, 2009 2009
- Feminist Theory Workshop. 2009 2009

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Education, Training, & Certifications

Duke Appointment History

In the News

Awards & Honors

Subject Headings

Global Scholarship

Expertise

Selected Grants

Selected Publications

Books

Academic Articles

Book Sections

Other Articles

Recent Courses

Presentations & Appearances

Service to the Profession