Cogut Institute for the Humanities

Ren L[i]u graduated from Brown with honors in Ethnic Studies.

In still figuring out how to translate [them]self to this world, they are continuously grateful for the spaces where they do not have to — particularly in their QTPOC and crip-centered communities. Their academic work seeks to honor how they learn in/outside of the academy, culminating in their thesis, titled “Towards Crip-of-Color Transsexual Erotics: Trans, Disabled Poetics as Technologies of Understanding Third World Othering and Belonging.” Their project combines their work in ethnic studies and science, technology, and society to understand how essentializing and pathologizing bodies — particularly those othered as transsexual and disabled — have been powerful technologies and ideologies driving racialization. As a poet themself, the project will anthologize/analyze the poetry of trans, disabled artists of color as crucial sites of knowledge on the intersections of different oppressive structures. Ren finds artistic home in ProvSlam and WORD! Performance Poetry, an all BIPOC poetry collective at Brown. Their [non-/]research interests include the community-based responses to harm/crisis, histories of diaspora and immigration, Asian American organizing and coalition, and the role of art and literature in movement building. They also have a comprehensive background in facilitation and curriculum development, having designed workshops for national racial/gender justice organizations, and in their work coordinating/mentoring Transformative Justice CA processes and coordinating the Disability Justice Student Initiative.