Dr. Ahmad first arrived at St. John’s in 2004, after having taught at various other institutions since 1995. She has also taught out-of-school youth and high school enrichment classes (Upward Bound). At St. John’s, Dr. Ahmad teaches undergraduate courses in Postcolonial Literature, Global Vernaculars, Utopian Fiction, American Literature: Canon and Counter-Canon, among others. At the graduate level, she teaches courses on Postcolonial Literature and the Politics of Language, State and Non-State Violence, Reading the High School Canon, and Teaching World Literature. She says her favorite class to teach is “All of them! I love developing new courses, and feel very lucky that I can keep teaching new material here. Generally my favorite is the second time around of any new class. The first time is scary, and after the second it can start to get stale.”Dr. Ahmad is also the author of Landscapes of Hope: Anti-Colonial Utopianism in the United States and she is the editor of volume published by Norton, Rotten English: A Literary Anthology. She has also published essays in ELH, the Yale Journal of Criticism, Social Text, and the Journal of Commonwealth Literature.
Outside of the classroom, Dr. Ahmad enjoys spending time with her family: her husband, 10-year-old and 6-year-old daughters, her mom, and many many cousins. She also has nurtured an interest in pottery and is currently learning how to sew. She loves meals with lots of different components: “Bibimbap, Indian buffet, tasting menu, small plates.”
When asked what piece of advice she would offer her students, Dr. Ahmad shared, “Other people are just as nervous about their writing, class participation, conference presentations, etc. as you are! Don’t let their pretentions get to you.”
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