Laila Amine is an Associate Professor in the English Department. She received her MA in African American and African Diaspora Studies and a PhD in Comparative Literature and American Studies from Indiana University, Bloomington in 2011. Her interests lie in 20th century African American and African diaspora literatures, comparative race and ethnic students, along with migration and decoloniality. Laila is the author of Postcolonial Paris Fictions of Intimacy in the City of Light. Her research concerns major contemporary social issues, particularly narratives about race and migration in Europe and the United States. As such, it is in synch with the Wisconsin idea that research should aim at better understanding and resolving social problems.
A word from Anja Wanner, Chair of English Department:
Associate Professor Laila Amine, a postcolonialist of international reputation, joined us three years ago from the University of North Texas, where she had already achieved tenure, and just underwent the tenure process again. Her first book, Postcolonial Paris: Fictions of Intimacy in the City of Light, centers on the disenfranchised racial margins of the city and presents a more inclusive, more imaginative cultural history of ‘the city of light.’ Her scholarship, built on material from literature, film, and street art, is original, timely, and substantive. Amine is also an accomplished teacher, who is greatly adding to the English Department’s strengths in the field of global Black literatures. I am immensely proud and happy to count Professor Amine as my colleague and congratulate her warmly on her promotion to associate professor with tenure at UW-Madison.