Kavitha Koshy
Kavitha Koshy is a Lecturer in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, International Studies, and the University Honor’s Program at California State University, Long Beach. She locates herself transnationally in multiple social movement spaces from India, to Texas, to California. She has worked as a community organizer in Kashtakari Sanghatana, an indigenous people’s movement for self-determination in Dahanu, India, and with the feminist organization Vimochana, developing community-based approaches to address gendered violence in Bangalore, India. She has a Master’s in Women’s Studies and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Texas Woman’s University, Denton, Texas. Her research centers processes of racialization and the racialized and gendered labor of South Asian immigrants in the United States, culminating in her book, The Paradoxes of Indian American Complicity: On the Racial Sidelines published by Lexington Books in 2022. She has also published articles on transnational feminisms, Anzaldúan theories, and South Asian media representation in the United States. At CSULB she co-directs the newly established interdisciplinary South Asian Studies minor.
Histories of racialization; Transnational feminisms; U.S. Women of Color feminisms; Racial complicity and anti-racist coalition work; Feminization of militarism; Feminist and labor movements in South Asia; Globalization and immigration regimes; and Community-based interventions to gender violence in India.
WGSS 401: Bodies and Borders: Feminism and Globalization
WGSS 318: Fierce Struggles: U.S. Women of Color
GLST/A/ST 327: South Asian Studies: Contexts and Challenges
GLST 100: Global Citizenship
SOC 449: Sociology of Human Rights and Social Justice
SOC 430: Sociology of Globalization
SOC 346: Race, Gender, Class
WGSS 300: Feminist Theories
SOC 357: Modern Sociological Theory
WGSS 101: Gender, Race, Sex, and the Body
WGSS 102: Gender, Race, Sex, and Society
WGSS 307: U.S. Women and the Economy
UHP 100: Angles of Vision (University Honors Program)
Book
Koshy, Kavitha. 2022. The Paradoxes of Indian American Complicity: On the Racial Sidelines. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Book Chapters
Koshy, Kavitha and Sabrina Alimahomed-Wilson. 2024. “Transnational Feminisms Transform the Sociology of Gender.” In Research Handbook on the Sociology of Gender. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Koshy, Kavitha. 2021. “South Asians and U.S. Television.” In Race in American Television: The Complete Resource. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Koshy, Kavitha. 2021. “The Mindy Project.” In Race in American Television: The Complete Resource. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Koshy, Kavitha. 2011. “Feels Like ‘Carving Bone’: (Re)creating the Activist-Self, (Re)articulating Transnational Journeys, while Sifting through Anzaldúan Thought.” Pp.197-203 in Bridging: How and Why Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s Life and Work has Transformed Our Own, edited by A. Keating and G. Gonzalez-Lopez. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Yang, Philip Q. and Kavitha Koshy. 2016. "The “Becoming White Thesis” Revisited," The Journal of Public and Professional Sociology 8(1): Article 1.
Yang, Philip Q. and Kavitha Koshy. 2012. “Trends in Whites’ Perceived Black-White Residential Integration, 1972-2008.” Journal of Public and Professional Sociology 4(1): Article 6.
Koshy, Kavitha. 2006. “Nepantlera-Activism in the Transnational Moment: In Dialogue with Gloria Anzaldúa’s Theorizing of Nepantla.” Human Architecture: Journal of theSociology of Self-Knowledge, 4 (Special Issue): 147-161.
