Bakirathi Mani is a prolific scholar who examines the possibilities and limits of Asian American representation. Mani specializes in South Asian American public cultures, studying how empire in the US and in postcolonial South Asia shape South Asian American racial formations. Her latest book is Unseeing Empire: Photography, Representation, South Asian America (Duke University Press, 2020). She is also the author of Aspiring to Home: South Asians in America (Stanford University Press, 2012). Professor Mani is a founder of the Tri-College Asian American Studies Program, leading the development of Asian American studies at Swarthmore (where she currently teaches), Bryn Mawr, and Haverford Colleges. Born in India, raised in Japan, and educated in the US, Professor Mani embodies many of the diasporic experiences of our undergraduate and graduate students. At Penn, she will be offering courses on Asian American literary and cultural studies, queer and feminist of color theory, and comparative race and ethnic studies. Mani will be joining ASAM and the Department of English as a Full Professor in Fall 2023.