Sowmya Ramanathan

 

Sowmya Ramanathan is a researcher and educator whose work focuses on the transnational connections between feminist theories and cultural practices in the 20th and 21st century Americas. Her research takes a hemispheric approach to studying the role of the body, narrative, and culture in movements for social change, especially those led by women of color. Working at the intersections of cultural studies, feminist theory and practice, and community psychology, Sowmya’s work foregrounds the theoretical and pragmatic tools that can help cross-sector changemakers understand the role of embodiment, emotion, conflict, identity, community, and the future in movement-building.

Her current book project, The Stories We Tell: Visionary Feminism and Narrative Change, examines the role narrative plays in movements for lasting psychological, social, and political change. The book centers the work of women, all feminists and creative visionaries from the American Global South, who have long understood how to evaluate, frame, and shift narratives to enact more inclusive forms of justice, equity, well-being, protest, pleasure, and joy. From México to Argentina, the United States, Chile, Bolivia, and Colombia, The Stories We Tell is conceived as a theoretical guide and a pragmatic tool that can help those who are grappling with ways to name and understand power, evaluate dominant narrative, build a narrative ecosystem, frame and craft impactful messaging, manage conflict; and incorporate aspirational, imaginative, and creative visions into the struggle for collective wellbeing.

Sowmya’s academic research has been featured in several peer-reviewed publications such as Lexington Books’s Intersectional Feminism in the Age of Transnational Feminism (eds. Bezhanova and Amador), the UNAM and University of Guanajuato’s Las palabras y los días. Women in the Latin American Press, and AGITATE! Journal. She has also worked adjacently with the Center for Evaluation Innovation to advise for the incorporation of humanities methodologies in current learning & evaluation practices. As a researcher, she is passionate about bringing humanistic and social scientific methods together to develop engaged, pragmatic solutions to changemakers working across academia, philanthropy, learning & evaluation, and organizing.

Current teaching:

⁃ Poetics of Resistance: Feminism and Social Movements in the Americas (freshman writing seminar, English)

⁃ Radical Womxn: Gender, Culture, and Politics in the Americas (sophomore writing seminar, Spanish)

⁃ Rhyme and Rhythm: Poetry and Musical Resistance in the Americas (upper-level topics course, Spanish)

⁃ Introductory, Intermediate, and Advanced Spanish