Arianna Afsari

Arianna Afsari (she/her) is a doctoral student in the Department of Comparative Literature. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the College of William and Mary in 2019 with a BA in Russian & Post-Soviet studies and Hispanic studies. Before arriving at the University of Michigan, she lived and conducted research abroad in Russia, Spain, and Latin America. Her studies span three regions and languages: Russia, Latin America, and Iran. Arianna examines traditions of poetry and literature deployed as tools of anti-colonial and decolonial resistance to identify a distinctive world literature that is grounded in an anti-imperialist culture, contraposing the Eurocentric and Anglophonic discourses surrounding global literary exchanges. Additional research interests include the role of violence in liberatory theory and praxis; conditions of extremity; and revolutionary, leftist imaginations.