Pranav Jani is a college professor, literary & cultural studies scholar, and longtime social justice organizer in Columbus, Ohio.
Dr. Jani is associate professor of English at The Ohio State University in Postcolonial Studies & Ethnic Studies, and affiliated with many departments and units including the Center for Ethnic Studies, the Department of African American and African Studies, the South Asian Studies Initiative, and the Middle East Studies Center.
Dr. Jani graduated with a BA from Yale (1993), MA from Indiana-Blookington (1995), and Ph.D. from Brown (2001). He worked as a graduate assistant from 1994 on, and as assistant professor of English at Wagner College (2000-04), before joining OSU English in Fall 2004.
The “Teaching,” “Scholarship,” and “Events” sections of this website offer more details on Dr. Jani’s work as a professor. Also see his OSU page.
But let me switch this up and talk to you directly.
This site is also about sharing my public-facing work, and asserting–against right-wing diatribes about indoctrination–that it is good when educators engage in the public sphere.
I continually strive to be the sort of public intellectual and community-engaged scholar that Edward Said and others have talked about.
See the “Events,” “Podcast,” “Blog” and “Media” tabs for more. They feature my talks at local OSU and Columbus organizing events, my interviews with local Columbus and Central Ohio activists, my Medium blog posts on a range of topics over many years, and my essays and interviews in the media.
That said, I need to go further still.
At my core, I’m not a professor who happens to do work in the public sphere.
I’m an organizer who happens to work as a professor.
This is a phrase that Rubén Castillo Herrera–our late beloved comrade here in Columbus–used to love.
I think Rubén liked it because it expresses the importance of being grounded in the people. The opposite of the ivory tower mindset. I invoke Rubén and this phrase to keep this aspiration front and center as I build my personal website.
I’m humbled to have participated as a social justice organizer on a range of campaigns and in many organizations and coalitions for over thirty years. Currently this includes my work in AAUP-OSU, as board member and past present, and as a member of Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) at Ohio State. I was faculty advisor for OSU student organizations like International Socialist Organization (2004-19) and Students for Justice in Palestine (2010-25). I also serve as a board member of Dear Asian Youth, an international non-profit organization. See my “Together We Rise” podcast and the “Archives” tab for more.
Please send me an email through the “contact” tab to find out more about my work, invite me for a talk or workshop, or give constructive feedback.