A member of the faculty since 2006, Anne Cheng is an interdisciplinary and comparative race scholar who focuses on the intersection between politics and aesthetics, drawing from literary theory, race and gender studies, film and architectural theory, legal studies, psychoanalysis, and critical food studies. She is a member of Princeton’s Class of 1985.

Cheng, who was critical in designing Princeton’s Asian American studies curriculum, is known for the innovative and wide-ranging resources she draws on for her courses. “Her courses were the most inventive and engaging seminars I took at Princeton, and their range and focus expanded my sense of what literary studies could be,” said an alumnus now earning a Ph.D. He described her teaching style as “boundlessly creative and intellectually playful.”

An alumnus who is now an English professor remarked on her ability “to craft a space — intellectual, physical and digital — for students to critically approach scholarly questions via creative means.”

A colleague noted that “she is able to teach popular topics without compromising her belief that students thrive when they are confronted with materials that demand a rigorous and sustained conceptual engagement.”

Drawing on subjects as diverse as food, art, film, pop culture and legal rulings, “she helped us see that literature is never produced in a vacuum, that the story of race, of our understanding of the psyche, and our concept of the nation can and should be thought about together,” a student said.