Amar Wahab
School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies
Professor
Undergraduate Program Director, School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies
Office: Founders College
Phone: (416) 736-2100
Email: awahab@yorku.ca
Amar Wahab is Professor of Gender and Sexuality in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University. He has taught in the areas of critical sexuality studies, critical studies in masculinity, critical race studies, introductory and advanced sociological theory and Caribbean cultural studies. His research interests include: race, sexuality and indentureship, sexual citizenship in liberal and postcolonial nation-state formations (mainly related to the Caribbean and Canada), race and queer transnational politics, critiques of queer liberalism, and race, gender and the politics of representation. His current research project focuses on the erotics of Indian indentureship.
Degrees
PhD, University of TorontoMA, Shimane University
B.Sc., The University of the West Indies
Research Interests
Disciplining Coolies: An Archival Footprint of Trinidad, 1846. New York: Peter Lang.
Envisioning LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)Colonialism, Neoliberalism and
Activism
Free At Last: Critical Reflections on the Bicentennial of the Abolition of the British Slave Trade (with C. Jones, co-editor, University of Warwick), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.
Colonial Inventions: Landscape, Power and Representation in Nineteenth-Century ‘Trinidad’ Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010.
Diasporic Ruptures: Globality, Migrancy, and Expressions of Identity, Volumes I and II (with co-editors A. Asgarzadeh, E. Lawson and K. Oka), Sense Publishers, The Netherlands. 2007.
The First Crossing: Being the Diary of Theophilus Richmond, Ship’s Doctor on the Hesperus (with co-editors D. Dabydeen, J. Morley, B. Samaroo and B. Wells), The Derek Walcott Press, United Kingdom, 2007.
‘Decolonial interventions to Queer Necropolitics and Homonationalisms.’ In Gül Çalışkan and Kayla Preston (eds.) Gendering Globalization, Globalizing Gender: Post-Colonial Perspectives, Oxford University Press
‘Unveiling Fetishnationalism: Bidding for Citizenship in Queer Times.’ 2015. In Suzanne Lenon and OmiSoore Dryden (eds.), Disturbing Queer Inclusion: Canadian Homonationalisms and the Politics of Belonging, University of British Columbia Press.
‘Island of the Blest’: (Re)naturalizing the Natural Landscape in 19th- Century Trinidad.’ 2007. In E. Sommerville and C. Campbell (eds.) What is the Earthly Paradise?: Ecocritical Responses to the Caribbean, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, (pp. 50-72).
‘Consuming Narratives: Questioning Authority and the Politics of Representation in Social Science Research.’ 2005. In: George Dei (ed.) Critical Issues in Anti-Racist Research Methodologies. Peter Lang Publishers, (pp. 29-51).
Special Issue, ‘In Tribute’ Journal of Indentureship & its Legacies
(June, Lead Editor, 181 pages).
Special Issue on ‘Queer Trajectories of Gender & Sex/uality.’ Journal of
Indentureship & its Legacies (December, Lead Editor, 158 pages).
Special Issue on ‘Queering Indentureship.’ Journal of Indentureship & its
Legacies (July, Lead Editor, 161 pages).
‘Trans-Oceanic Erotics: Sexing Indentureship,’ Journal of
Indentureship and its Legacies. Vol. 2, Issue 2: 149-157.
‘When the Closet is the Grave: A Critical Analysis of Brown Queer
Killability,’ Sexualities. Vol. 25(7): 249-266.
‘The Darker the Fruit’?: Disciplinary Homonationalism, Racialized
Homophobia and Neoliberal Tourism in the St. Lucian-US Contact Zone,’
International Feminist Journal of Politics. Vol. 23, Issue 1: 80-101.
‘Queer Antiracist Vigilance: Pinkwatching ‘Queer Investments’ in State
Racist Violence,’
Affective Mobilizations: Pinkwashing and Racialized Homophobia in Out There.
‘Debrisn-1: Visualizing a Bullerman Erotics.
Indentureship’s Ghostworld: Re-imagining the Coolie Archive
‘Homosexuality/Homophobia is un/African?: Un/Mapping Transnational Discourses in the context of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill/Act.’ Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 63, No. 5: 685-718. 2016.
Calling ‘Homophobia’ into Place (Jamaica): Homo/trans/nationalism in the Stop Murder Music Campaign.’ Interventions: Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 18, No. 6: 908-928. 2016.
‘Homophobia as the State of Reason: The Case of Postcolonial Trinidad and Tobago.’ GLQ: Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies, Issue 18.4. 2012.
‘In the Name of Reason: Colonial Liberalism and the Government of West Indian Indentureship’ Journal of Historical Sociology Volume 24, Issue 2, 2011.
‘Queerness in the Transnational Caribbean Canadian Diaspora.’ (co-edited with Dwaine Plaza) Caribbean Review of Gender Studies Special Issue on Critical Sexualities, Vol. 3, November 2009.
‘Race, Gender, and Visuality: Regulating Indian Women Subjects in the Colonial Caribbean.’ Caribbean Review of Gender Studies Vol. 2, September 2008.
‘Mapping West Indian Orientalism: Race, Gender and Representations of Indentured Coolies in the Nineteenth-Century British West Indies.’ Journal of Asian American Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3, October 2007.
‘Contesting Cultural Citizenship?: The East Indian ‘Big House’ in Trinidad’s Nationalist Discourse.’ Journal of Works and Days: Intellectual Intersections and Racial/Ethnic Crossings, 47/48, Vol. 24, Nos. 1 & 2, 2006.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/48706323
They Came in Ships
https://www.vasaartsfestival.ca/2020-artists/
Coolie Hauntings
https://yfile.news.yorku.ca/2019/10/14/book-launch-exhibition-opening-celebrates-work-of-prof-amar-wahab/
Coolie Hauntings
Approach to Teaching
My theoretical and methodological interests in intersectional and interdisciplinary studies of race, gender and sexuality inform my under/graduate teaching and supervisory/mentoring philosophy and practice. Specifically, my teaching philosophy is based on a critical, interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to learning that aims to inspire intellectual curiosity about the study of power and difference – an approach that aligns solidly with the School’s and York University’s record of critical thinking and praxis, as well as with the core pillars (i.e. social construction, critical intersectional analysis and socio-political change) of the fields that ground my profession. I firmly believe that critical pedagogies are also meant to push students to consider ‘problem-solving’ approaches alongside a conceptualization of the ‘problem space’ of power – a perspective that illuminates the complexities, conditioning elements, potentialities and limitations of how we come to think about social and political ‘problems’ as constructions.
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/GWST2512 6.0 | A | Race, Gender & Sexuality | ONLN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/GWST2512 6.0 | A | Race, Gender & Sexuality | TUTR |
Upcoming Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/GWST2512 6.0 | A | Race, Gender & Sexuality | ONLN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/GWST2512 6.0 | A | Race, Gender & Sexuality | TUTR |
| Winter 2025 | GS/SOCI6536 3.0 | M | Transnational Sexualities | ONLN |
Amar Wahab is Professor of Gender and Sexuality in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University. He has taught in the areas of critical sexuality studies, critical studies in masculinity, critical race studies, introductory and advanced sociological theory and Caribbean cultural studies. His research interests include: race, sexuality and indentureship, sexual citizenship in liberal and postcolonial nation-state formations (mainly related to the Caribbean and Canada), race and queer transnational politics, critiques of queer liberalism, and race, gender and the politics of representation. His current research project focuses on the erotics of Indian indentureship.
Degrees
PhD, University of TorontoMA, Shimane University
B.Sc., The University of the West Indies
Research Interests
All Publications
‘Decolonial interventions to Queer Necropolitics and Homonationalisms.’ In Gül Çalışkan and Kayla Preston (eds.) Gendering Globalization, Globalizing Gender: Post-Colonial Perspectives, Oxford University Press
‘Unveiling Fetishnationalism: Bidding for Citizenship in Queer Times.’ 2015. In Suzanne Lenon and OmiSoore Dryden (eds.), Disturbing Queer Inclusion: Canadian Homonationalisms and the Politics of Belonging, University of British Columbia Press.
‘Island of the Blest’: (Re)naturalizing the Natural Landscape in 19th- Century Trinidad.’ 2007. In E. Sommerville and C. Campbell (eds.) What is the Earthly Paradise?: Ecocritical Responses to the Caribbean, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, (pp. 50-72).
‘Consuming Narratives: Questioning Authority and the Politics of Representation in Social Science Research.’ 2005. In: George Dei (ed.) Critical Issues in Anti-Racist Research Methodologies. Peter Lang Publishers, (pp. 29-51).
Disciplining Coolies: An Archival Footprint of Trinidad, 1846. New York: Peter Lang.
Envisioning LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)Colonialism, Neoliberalism and
Activism
Free At Last: Critical Reflections on the Bicentennial of the Abolition of the British Slave Trade (with C. Jones, co-editor, University of Warwick), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.
Colonial Inventions: Landscape, Power and Representation in Nineteenth-Century ‘Trinidad’ Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010.
Diasporic Ruptures: Globality, Migrancy, and Expressions of Identity, Volumes I and II (with co-editors A. Asgarzadeh, E. Lawson and K. Oka), Sense Publishers, The Netherlands. 2007.
The First Crossing: Being the Diary of Theophilus Richmond, Ship’s Doctor on the Hesperus (with co-editors D. Dabydeen, J. Morley, B. Samaroo and B. Wells), The Derek Walcott Press, United Kingdom, 2007.
Special Issue, ‘In Tribute’ Journal of Indentureship & its Legacies
(June, Lead Editor, 181 pages).
Special Issue on ‘Queer Trajectories of Gender & Sex/uality.’ Journal of
Indentureship & its Legacies (December, Lead Editor, 158 pages).
Special Issue on ‘Queering Indentureship.’ Journal of Indentureship & its
Legacies (July, Lead Editor, 161 pages).
‘Trans-Oceanic Erotics: Sexing Indentureship,’ Journal of
Indentureship and its Legacies. Vol. 2, Issue 2: 149-157.
‘When the Closet is the Grave: A Critical Analysis of Brown Queer
Killability,’ Sexualities. Vol. 25(7): 249-266.
‘The Darker the Fruit’?: Disciplinary Homonationalism, Racialized
Homophobia and Neoliberal Tourism in the St. Lucian-US Contact Zone,’
International Feminist Journal of Politics. Vol. 23, Issue 1: 80-101.
‘Queer Antiracist Vigilance: Pinkwatching ‘Queer Investments’ in State
Racist Violence,’
Affective Mobilizations: Pinkwashing and Racialized Homophobia in Out There.
‘Debrisn-1: Visualizing a Bullerman Erotics.
Indentureship’s Ghostworld: Re-imagining the Coolie Archive
‘Homosexuality/Homophobia is un/African?: Un/Mapping Transnational Discourses in the context of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill/Act.’ Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 63, No. 5: 685-718. 2016.
Calling ‘Homophobia’ into Place (Jamaica): Homo/trans/nationalism in the Stop Murder Music Campaign.’ Interventions: Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 18, No. 6: 908-928. 2016.
‘Homophobia as the State of Reason: The Case of Postcolonial Trinidad and Tobago.’ GLQ: Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies, Issue 18.4. 2012.
‘In the Name of Reason: Colonial Liberalism and the Government of West Indian Indentureship’ Journal of Historical Sociology Volume 24, Issue 2, 2011.
‘Queerness in the Transnational Caribbean Canadian Diaspora.’ (co-edited with Dwaine Plaza) Caribbean Review of Gender Studies Special Issue on Critical Sexualities, Vol. 3, November 2009.
‘Race, Gender, and Visuality: Regulating Indian Women Subjects in the Colonial Caribbean.’ Caribbean Review of Gender Studies Vol. 2, September 2008.
‘Mapping West Indian Orientalism: Race, Gender and Representations of Indentured Coolies in the Nineteenth-Century British West Indies.’ Journal of Asian American Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3, October 2007.
‘Contesting Cultural Citizenship?: The East Indian ‘Big House’ in Trinidad’s Nationalist Discourse.’ Journal of Works and Days: Intellectual Intersections and Racial/Ethnic Crossings, 47/48, Vol. 24, Nos. 1 & 2, 2006.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/48706323
They Came in Ships
https://www.vasaartsfestival.ca/2020-artists/
Coolie Hauntings
https://yfile.news.yorku.ca/2019/10/14/book-launch-exhibition-opening-celebrates-work-of-prof-amar-wahab/
Coolie Hauntings
Approach to Teaching
My theoretical and methodological interests in intersectional and interdisciplinary studies of race, gender and sexuality inform my under/graduate teaching and supervisory/mentoring philosophy and practice. Specifically, my teaching philosophy is based on a critical, interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to learning that aims to inspire intellectual curiosity about the study of power and difference – an approach that aligns solidly with the School’s and York University’s record of critical thinking and praxis, as well as with the core pillars (i.e. social construction, critical intersectional analysis and socio-political change) of the fields that ground my profession. I firmly believe that critical pedagogies are also meant to push students to consider ‘problem-solving’ approaches alongside a conceptualization of the ‘problem space’ of power – a perspective that illuminates the complexities, conditioning elements, potentialities and limitations of how we come to think about social and political ‘problems’ as constructions.
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/GWST2512 6.0 | A | Race, Gender & Sexuality | ONLN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/GWST2512 6.0 | A | Race, Gender & Sexuality | TUTR |
Upcoming Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/GWST2512 6.0 | A | Race, Gender & Sexuality | ONLN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/GWST2512 6.0 | A | Race, Gender & Sexuality | TUTR |
| Winter 2025 | GS/SOCI6536 3.0 | M | Transnational Sexualities | ONLN |
