Deepa Kumar is an Indian American scholar and activist. She is a professor of Journalism and Media Studies at
Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...
. Kumar has been referred to by the Media Education Foundation as “one of the nation’s foremost scholars on Islamophobia"
and by the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' as "a world-renowned scholar of Islamophobia and race."
She is a leader in the Rutgers faculty union, the AAUP-AFT. When she was president, the union fought for gender and race equity, and in 2019 won a contract that AFT president, Randi Weingarten, said “will inspire higher education professionals across
hecountry to fight and win their own battles to improve their lives – and the lives of others – in the streets and at the bargaining table.”
Education and career
Kumar has a master's degree in Mass Communication from
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University (BGSU) is a public research university in Bowling Green, Ohio. The main academic and residential campus is south of Toledo, Ohio. The university has nationally recognized programs and research facilities in the ...
after earning her post-bachelor's B.S. (Communications) from
Bangalore University
Bangalore University (BU) is a public state university located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The university is a part of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and affiliated by Univers ...
.
[}] She earned her Ph.D. at the
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...
.
She is a professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University where she teaches courses such as "Gender, Race, and Empire."
In 2020, she was one of five female tenured professors to file a lawsuit against Rutgers accusing the university of paying them less than their male counterparts.
Writings
Media Representations of Labor
''Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization, and the UPS Strike''
Kumar's 2008 book ''Outside the Box'' looks at the need for a critical analysis of how labor struggles are presented and packaged by the corporate media by examining the
United Parcel Service strike of 1997 The United Parcel Service strike of 1997, led by International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) President Ron Carey, started on August 4, 1997, and involved over 185,000 Teamsters (IBT members). The strike effectively shut down United Parcel Service ...
, led by the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), also known as the Teamsters Union, is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of The Team Drivers International Union and The Teamsters National Union, the un ...
.
Writings on Islamophobia, Political Islam, and Empire
''Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire''
The first edition (2012) of ''Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire'' made the case that the Bush administration's "war on terror" ushered in an era of anti-Muslim racism, or Islamophobia, after the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
. Kumar argues that that tragedy did not create the image of the "Muslim enemy." She sheds light on the long history of anti-Muslim racism and the agenda of empire building in the West with a particular focus on the US. The second edition (2021) titled ''Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire: 20 Years after 9/11'' traces the history of anti-Muslim racism from the early modern era to the War on Terror. This is an updated and completely revised second edition that brings her analysis up to the Trump presidency.
Danish cartoons
Following the
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
The ''Jyllands-Posten'' Muhammad cartoons controversy (or Muhammad cartoons crisis, da, Muhammedkrisen) began after the Danish newspaper ''Jyllands-Posten'' published 12 editorial cartoons on 30 September 2005, most of which depicted Muhamma ...
which attempted to depict the
Islamic
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the mai ...
Prophet
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...
Muhammed
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monot ...
in a caricatural light, Kumar wrote an article against the publication of the cartoons titled "Danish Cartoons: Racism Has No Place on the Left," where she argues that the left's criticism of Muslim outrage is actually a form of anti-Muslim racism. The article attracted criticism, and in response Kumar wrote another article in the Monthly Review, titled "Fighting Islamophobia: A Response to Critics".
Green Scare
Kumar coined the term "Green Scare" (where green refers to the color of Islam rather than environment activists) to talk about the process of fear mongering analogous to the
Red Scare
A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which ar ...
of the McCarthyite period. This was in response to the media portrayal of the "homegrown threat" of Muslim Americans after a 2009 small increase in the number of Muslim Americans expressing support for extremist Islamists or carrying out attacks; she noted that "there has been a steady and dramatic decline since 2004, with only a slight increase in this overall trend in 2009."
Political Islam
Kumar takes a historical approach to her analysis of the parties of political Islam. She states that Islamist parties have risen to prominence over the last three decades of the 20th century for various reasons: "the active role played by the U.S. in posing Islam and political Islam as an alternative to secular nationalism and the left; persistent imperial intervention and domination; internal weakness that led to the decline of secular nationalist and various left parties, creating an ideological vacuum that Islamists were able to occupy; economic crises and its exacerbation under the neoliberal era, which present an economic opening for Islamists and their charitable networks."
Kumar has criticized the automatic designation of Islamist groups like
Hamas
Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Bri ...
as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) noting that it is a political party that has the support of Palestinians because it has taken up "the mantle of national resistance against Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands." While she critiques its "reactionary" politics and attitudes towards women as well as its policing of "immorality," she points out that it came to power through generally recognized free and fair elections in 2006. She argues that it is for the people of Palestine to decide who should govern them, not Israel or the United States.
In 2017, Kumar's lecture "Constructing the Terrorist Threat: Islamophobia, the Media & the War on Terror" was published by the Media Education Foundation as part of their series on media, culture, and the Middle East.
Awards and recognition
In 2016 Kumar was recognized with the Dallas Smythe Award, presented by the Union for Democratic Communications "to an outstanding and influential scholar working in the critical political economic tradition of
Dallas Smythe
Dallas Walker Smythe (March 9, 1907 – September 6, 1992) was a political activist and researcher who contributed to a political economy of communications. He believed that research should be used to develop knowledge that could be applied to po ...
."
She has also received two awards from the
American Association of University Professors
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is an organization of professors and other academics in the United States. AAUP membership includes over 500 local campus chapters and 39 state organizations.
The AAUP's stated mission is ...
, the Georgina M. Smith Award in 2016, and the Marilyn Sternberg Award in 2020.
References
External links
Deepa Kumar talks about her book "Outside the Box"from July 10, 2008 in Sacramento, CA
Trailer for "Constructing the Terrorist Threat"2017 lecture by Kumar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kumar, Deepa
Members of the International Socialist Organization
Rutgers University faculty
1968 births
Living people
Scholars of Islamophobia
Bangalore University alumni
Indian women historians
20th-century Indian historians
21st-century American historians
American people of Indian descent
20th-century Indian women scientists
20th-century Indian scientists
American women historians
21st-century American women