Umniya Najaer
- (she/her/hers)
- Assistant Professor
- ETHNIC STUDIES
- AFRICANA STUDIES
Address
Pronouns: she / her / hers
Office Hours
By appointment.
Education
Ph.D., Stanford University, Modern Thought and Literature, 2025
M.A., Stanford University, Modern Thought and Literature, 2020 B.A., Hampshire College, African and African American Studies, 2016
Research Interests
African, African American, and Caribbean Studies (including history, literature, political thought, social movements, and visual culture of the worldwide African diaspora), Black Critical Theory, Black Feminist Thought and Praxis, Africana Literature, the Black Radical Tradition; Counter-Archival Methods; twentieth and twenty-first century Poetics; Creative Writing, Poetry, Non-fiction and Hybrid Forms; Documentary Poetry; Experimental Literary Forms; Archival Research Methods; Black Speculative Methodologies; Afro-Futurism; Afro-Pessimism; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Queer of Color Critique; Theatre and Performance Studies.
Umniya Najaer (PhD, Stanford University) is an interdisciplinary Black Studies scholar who draws on Black Studies theories in conjunction with literary, archival, and social science methodologies to illuminate urgent socio-political issues. One thread of Dr. Najaer’s critical and creative work asks: how do we make sense of the fact that our species has reached a point of astonishing intellectual aptitude—including, but not limited to, technological, scientific, and humanistic advancements—while continuing to perpetuate forms of brute violence, the irreversible annihilation of life, and staggering disparities in resource distribution and quality of life? Grounded in the thought of Jamaican philosopher Sylvia Wynter, Dr. Najaer’s current book project investigates alternate epistemologies and non-homogenizing metanarratives of the human. Her in-progress manuscript, Sylvia Wynter and Black Study: Experiments in Metasystemic Inquiry and Transcalar Reworlding, offers a conceptual toolkit for future scholars to engage Wynterian philosophy.
Another dimension of Dr. Najaer’s work centers on Sudan, emphasizing contemporary history and politics as examined through the lens of documentary poetics. Recent projects include works in progress such as “Elegy for Sudan’s Martyrs: A Poetic Discourse of the Nile as a Site of Resistance and Repression,” “Sudan’s Torture Sites: A Ghost House Genealogy,” and a featured episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast titled “What Is Behind the Devastating War and Famine in Sudan?” Her poetry chapbook, Armeika, was published in 2018 by Akashic Books as part of the African Poetry Book Fund’s First-Generation African Poets series. This collection explores stories of the global Sudanese diaspora, including the Biyout al Ashbah, (or 'Ghost Houses'), the unofficial government torture sites, the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers, and intimate portrayals of female genital cutting. She is currently at work on her debut poetry collection. Dr. Najaer is a proud Cave Canem Fellow.
To date, Dr. Najaer’s work has received generous support from Stanford University’s Vice Provost for Graduate Education (VPGE) through the Diversifying Academia, Recruiting Excellence (DARE) Fellowship; the African American History Mellon Dissertation Fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia; the Advisory Council Dissertation Fellowship at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania; and the Susan Ford Dorsey Innovation in Africa Fellowship, among others. Her creative work has received support from the Cave Canem Foundation, the Sacatar Institute in Bahia, Brazil, and the Bethlehem Peace Center.
Selected Publications
Najaer, Umniya, and Yousuf Abubakr. “Guerre au Soudan: le Canada impliqué.” Droits et libertés 45, no. 1 (Printemps/Été 2026): 11–15.
Lucas, J. S., Irikefe, P. O., Uchendu, A., Najaer, U., Adejoro, C. O., Sterling, P., & Lee, D. Position: Breaking the Dual Curse of Multilingual AI Requires Socio-Technical Guardrails, Not Post-Hoc Alignment Alone. In Forty-third International Conference on Machine Learning Position Paper Track.
Najaer, Umniya. “Muzan Alneel (1986–2026): Sudanese Visionary and Revolutionary.” The Massachusetts Review. April 24, 2026. Massreview.org/2026/04/24/muzan-alneel-1986-2026-sudanese-visionary-and-revolutionary/
Najaer, Umniya. “for my sisters who entered the Nile with open eyes.”Mizna Online, February 13, 2026.
Najaer, Umniya. “Disarm Humanity: Dreaming of a Future without Blood on Our Hands: Meditations from the Third Decade of the Third Millennium,” Mizna 25, no. 2 (Futurities), guest eds. Barrak Alzaid and Aram Kavoossi (2024).
Najaer, Umniya. “Dear Alice, ‘for the murder of [your] bastard child’ of the starry-eyed tribe born to children.” In So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth, edited by Aracelis Girmay. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2023.
Najaer, Umniya. “Spinning: Zuihitsu Fragment on Ecological and Cosmic Consciousness.” Mizna 23, no. 2 (Black SWANA Takeover), guest edited by Safia Elhillo (2022).
Najaer, Umniya. Armeika. Brooklyn, NY: Akashic Books, 2018. First-Generation African Poets Series, edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani.
Najaer, Denver Painters Fight Toxic Labor Practices, The Colorado Independent.
Kundunani, Keppler, Najaer. “How One Man Refused to Spy on Fellow Muslims for the FBI — and Then Lost Everything,” The Nation, October 14, 2014.