he/him

Associate Professor

Feminist & Gender Studies

Rushaan Kumar joined the Department of Feminist and Gender Studies in 2017. He received his PhD in Feminist Studies in 2015 at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Prior to joining Colorado College, he taught at Carleton College and Pomona College in Gender and Women’s Studies.

His research examines transgender Indians’ contestations over cultural citizenship by exploring how transmasculine and gender nonconforming people inhabit social, state, and representational spheres. This work lies at the intersection of transnational gender and sexuality studies, critical queer and trans masculinity, postcolonial and decolonial approaches, film and media studies, and queer social movements in India and the South Asian diaspora. With trans studies in India engaged predominantly with transfeminine communities, female- and trans masculinity remain obscured and under-researched. In this context, transmen are understood as “invisible” and silent subjects rather than active participants in shaping LGBTQ as well as national politics and culture. In focusing on media representations of gender nonconformity, Kumar’s scholarship challenges the commonsense about their invisibility and posits female- and trans masculinity as viable and generative sites of knowledge production. His current writings examine trans masculine complicities in and resistance to neoliberal globalization, Hindu majoritarianism, and caste supremacy.

Kumar is the founding Director of the Colorado Springs LGBTQ+ Oral History Project, a public archive of the life stories of longtime LGBTQ+ residents of Colorado Springs, established in 2020. The oral history interviews that comprise this project are collected in collaboration with Colorado College students enrolled in Kumar’s classes, and are housed on CC’s Tutt Library Digital Archives website here. This Project was recognized with Colorado College’s 2020-21 Community-Engaged Research Award.

More information about the Project is available here. The oral histories are also accessible on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Follow our work on Instagram @cos.lgbtq.oralhistoryproject.

Courses Taught:

• Introduction to Queer Studies
• LGBTQ+ Social Movements in the US
• Sex Cultures, Sexual Politics
• Transnational Sexualities
• Queer and Trans Theories
• Critical Feminist Methodologies
• Masculinities
• Senior Seminar
• Dragging Hate: A Critical Examination of Anti-Trans Legislations (Bridge Scholars Program)

Kumar teaches courses crosslisted with Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Studies, and Asian Studies.