Staff Snapshot: Alana Lentin

Alana Lentin, from the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, is a Senior Lecturer in Social Analysis at the Bankstown campus. Here, she provides AroundUWS readers with a snapshot of her role at UWS.
 
When did you start working at UWS and what was your first role?I started working at UWS in June 2012, having moved here from a Senior Lectureship in Sociology at the University of Sussex in the UK.

Describe your current role in 100 words or less.I teach Cultural and Social Analysis. In my first semester I will be teaching tutorials on Contemporary Society, a big first-year course. From next semester I will be coordinating two units: one on issues of race and racism and the other is an exciting new option I have developed called Power, Politics and Resistance.

My interests are race, anti-racism and multiculturalism and I have spent the past five years working on a critique of the notion that multiculturalism is in crisis, which led to my last book, The Crises of Multiculturalism: Racism in a Neoliberal Age (2011, with Gavan Titley).

What's the best thing about your job?I'm excited about teaching Australian students from Western Sydney, which I get the sense is a very interesting environment. I love engaging in research-driven teaching and I hope that my particular interests – race, multiculturalism and anti-racism – will resonate with the students who attend UWS.

What do you love most about working at UWS?Everyone is incredibly friendly and dedicated to their job while being critical, which I think is very important for being a good scholar and teacher.

What are you going to be working on in the next 12 months?I'm starting work on my new book, which has the working title Racism and Antiracism in the Digital Age. I will also continue to contribute to public debates on these issues, such as the series Racism in a Digital Age currently being run by The Guardian's Comment is Free website.

I'm also looking forward to developing new and innovative teaching, learning and assessment methods for my new units at UWS. Finally, I'm hoping to develop collaboration with other scholars interested in decolonial thinking in Australia with the eventual aim of establishing a Decolonial Studies group. Please contact me if you are interested.

To find out more about Alana, visit her personal website (opens in a new window). You can also find her on Scrib'd (opens in a new window), Vimeo (opens in a new window) and Slideshare (opens in a new window).