R. Benedito Ferrão
Hunter College/CUNY
English Department
AAARI Lecture Series (September 18, 2026)
Across Continents: Writing Goans, Making Worlds
Fall 2026 Seminar (September 22 & 29; October 6 & 20; and November 10 & 24, 2026)
Across Continents: Transnational Asian/American Perspectives
Hunter College English Department Public Colloquium (November 6, 2026)
“Only You” in a Girl from Zanzibar: The 1980s, Neoliberalism, and the Soundtrack of Protest
Hunter College – Spring 2027: Register for Course
ENGL 25006 – TRANSNATIONAL ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE (3 Credits)
Section 01: M, W – 10am to 11:15am
Class Number: TBA
Through the use of fictional and other texts, this course will examine how the Asian American is constructed in literary settings that situate this subject in multiple worlds where characters cross the borders between nations. At several turns the model minority, the perpetual foreigner, or terrorist, how does the Asian American figure in various transnational contexts as represented by fiction? This course will analyze the intersectional constructs of race, gender, class, and sexuality in investigating how Asian Americanness is constituted within and against the concept of the nation in multiple global locations. In so doing, the focus will be on texts that engage with colonialism, (im)migration, diaspora, and globalization as markers of identity in perpetual flux. Accordingly, we will attend to how literature characterizes the subjectivity of Asian Americans within the United States as simultaneously American and Other. At the same time, we will also scrutinize how Asian/Americanness functions transnationally in literary depictions of racial and national identity at the margins of, and across, notions of inclusion and exclusion.
The CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor will perform teaching, research, and guidance duties in area(s) of expertise as noted below; and share responsibility for committee and department assignments, performing administrative, supervisory, and other functions as assigned.
The Tam Visiting Professor will be based at one of the four CUNY campuses participating in the search, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Queens College or the Graduate Center. They will teach one class a semester at that campus and will engage with students and faculty members during the appointment. The Tam Visiting Professor will participate in public events designed to raise the visibility of scholarship in Asian American studies. This will include working closely with the Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI).
This distinctive position presents an opportunity for a leading scholar to work in New York City’s diverse and dynamic environment while also working with AAARI and CUNY faculty to develop and enrich the CUNY research agenda in Asian American studies. Visiting faculty are individuals with a primary commitment to another accredited college or university who possess advanced scholarship or professional achievement.
Author Bio
R. Benedito Ferrão is Associate Professor of English and Asian & Pacific Islander American Studies at William & Mary, with affiliations in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. His honors include being named University Professor for Teaching Excellence (2025-28), the Jinlan Liu Award for Research in APIA Studies (2024-27), a Coco Faculty Fellowship (2026-27), a Fulbright-Nehru Research Award (2019-20), and fellowships with the American Institute of Indian Studies and the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at Bayreuth University.
Ferrão earned his Ph.D. at Birkbeck College, University of London, and has taught at UCLA, BITS Pilani Goa, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, and William & Mary. His research and teaching focus on Afro-Asiatic connections across Portuguese and British post/colonial histories and on diasporic fiction engaging race, gender, and sexuality, an interest closely tied to his curatorial work with artists such as Karishma D'Souza, Angela Ferrão, and Maria Vanessa de Sa, including the exhibition and book Goa/Portugal/Mozambique: The Many Lives of Vamona Navelcar (Fundação Oriente, 2017).
Ferrão's first monograph, Across Continents: Writing Goans, Making Worlds (University of Michigan Press, 2026), joins his children's book The Girl Who was the Color of Nothing: A Children's Story for Adults (The Uninvited, 2026), illustrated by Maria Vanessa de Sa. His collaboration with the artist Vamona Navelcar featured in the exhibition and book Goa/Portugal/Mozambique: The Many Lives of Vamona Navelcar (Fundação Oriente, 2017); that retrospective would be the last time Navelcar's art was seen publicly during his lifetime.
