Emily Mitamura is a doctoral candidate in Political Theory at the University of Minnesota. Her work takes up the afterlife of mass violence, particularly interrogating the performative and narrative demands placed upon those interred in the wake of the Cambodian Genocide with commitments to political theory, women of color feminisms, critical international relations, film studies, critical race and ethnic studies, and critical refugee studies. Her dissertation specifically turns to film and narrative representation to excavate the cultural, legal, and aesthetic processes by which events of mass violence become unified and mobile political objects negotiated by those living their wake. Her research has received support from the UMN Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship and the Institute for Advanced Studies, the Harold Leonard Film Fellowship, the UMN Community of Scholars Program, the Social Science Research Council, and the College of Liberal Arts at UMN. She also works closely with the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies writing group for graduate students of color as well as Bodies that Haunt: Rethinking the Political Economy of Death, a writing collective working toward an edited volume on the global traffic in aesthetics and desire around racialized death.

Educational Background & Specialties
Open Close

Educational Background

  • BA: Political Science, Vassar College, 2012 - 2016
  • MA: Political Science, University of Minnesota, 2016 - 2019
  • Certificate: in Power, Equity, Diversity, Dept. of Political Science, University of Minnesota, 2016 - 2018

Specialties

  • critical race and ethnic studies
  • women of color feminisms
  • political theory
  • film
  • critical international relations
  • postcolonial studies