Almas Khan, PH.D.
Assistant Professor of Law
As an intellectual historian, Professor Khan analyzes the dynamic relationships between legal and literary movements for equal citizenship in the postbellum United States. Drawing on her Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia and her J.D. with honors from the University of Chicago Law School, she interrogates how creative forms of legal dissent ‒ ranging from judicial opinions to lyric poems and graphic narratives ‒ have sparked constitutional reimagination in the context of African American, working-class, and women’s experiences. Professor Khan’s scholarship often centralizes figures whose identity or disciplinary hybridity has resulted in their marginalization from conventional accounts of U.S. legal history and jurisprudence.
Gender Studies -Related Research Interests: Feminist jurisprudence; gender in American literature; Black feminism; and critical pedagogy.
Fellowship-Related Published Research:
“African American Experiences and Charles Reznikoff’s Poetics in the Black Lives Matter Era,” in Reading Charles Reznikoff: The Plain Sunlight of His Verse, edited by Xavier Kalck, Fiona McMahon, and Naomi Toth, Clemson University Press, 2025, pp. 309-22.
“Civil Rights Lawyering and the Reconstruction of Law and Literature.” European Journal of English Studies, vol. 29, no. 1, 2025, pp. 28-49.
“Reconstituting the Canon: The Rise of the Black Lives Matter Judicial Opinion,” Washington University Jurisprudence Review, vol. 17, no. 2, spring 2025, pp. 247-324.
“Metacritique and Black Lives Matter Judicial Opinions.” Law and Critique / Recht und Kritik, edited by Greta Olson, Christian Schmidt, Benno Zabel, Jochen Bung, Franziska Martinsen, and Hanna Meißner, Verlag Karl Aber, 2025, pp. 309-16 (solicited).
“Black Lives Matter Poetry.” The Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Law & Literature, edited by Robert Spoo and Simon Stern, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2025, pp. 38-41 (solicited).
“Michael Harper.” Dictionary of Literary Biography #394: Twenty-First-Century African \American Poets, Second Series, edited by Kwame Dawes, Bruccoli Clark Layman, 2024, pp. 117-28 (solicited).
“Progressive Originalism and the New Canon Wars,” American Literary History, vol. 36, no. 3, fall 2024, pp. 809-14 (review essay) (solicited).
Fellowship-Related Conference Presentations:
“Enslaved Women’s Experiences and the Reformation of Legal History in the Black Lives Matter Era.” Law and Society Association Conference, Chicago, May 22-25, 2025 (related book chapter is forthcoming).
“The Afterlives of Slavery and African American Graphic Legal Histories.” African American Intellectual History Society Conference, Providence, RI, March 14-15, 2025.
“African American Women’s Poetry and the Law in the Black Lives Matter Era.” Furious Flower Poetry Conference, James Madison University, September 18-21, 2024 (related book chapter is forthcoming).
“Graphic Narratives and the Re-Envisioning of Legal History.” Comprehending Comics Conference, Palacký University (Czech Republic), September 8-9, 2024 (virtual) (related book chapter is in progress).
