Jay Sibara

Literary critic Jay Sibara focuses his work on race and disability. An interdisciplinary scholar, he is at the forefront of inventing an entirely new field, critical disability studies, which draws on research in the medical and environmental humanities, critical-race scholarship, and queer-of-color critique. The first step in defining this field was his first book, a coedited collection titled Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities: Toward an Eco-Crip Theory. His new book, Imperial Injuries: Race, Disability, and Debility in Narratives of Refusal to US Empire, is forthcoming from Temple University Press. 

He has done invaluable service in support of students, faculty, and staff on questions of race, gender, disability, and identity, including participating in the Presidential Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; serving as a Ralph Bunche Scholars faculty mentor; and co-convening the Antiracist Initiative in the English Department, where he was initially appointed. He co-chaired the English Department’s Curriculum Committee for a year and led the proposal process for a new concentration in literature and the environment.

Sibara started at Colby in 2014, coming from the University of Southern California, where he completed an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English. He also earned a B.A. in English at Swarthmore College.