LOS ANGELES — There’s nothing like a shelf full of books to inspire you throughout the day, but for academics of color, it’s nearly impossible to find a work of fiction written a hundred years ago that reflects your own reality.

Karen Tongson, a Professor of English at USC, knows this all too well.

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“I specialized in Victorian and Romantic literature so anything from the 19th century,” said Tongson. “You have, you know, your Jane Eyre, you have your Brontes, you have your Oscar Wildes, Dickens, etc…   and this was really the gauntlet. This was what I had to learn in order to have basically the authority to teach the books that I teach now.”

Now, she teaches contemporary authors like Sarah Waters and Viet Nguyen. 

“As well as non-fiction works and critical theory about gender, sexuality, and race in addition to books about music and music itself, pop music, and film and TV,” said Tongson.

Starting as an Assistant Professor in 2005, Karen was recently promoted and is recognized as the first woman of color with the rank of full professor in the Department of English at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

“It's also an opportunity to be a person who has the voice to transform the way that we establish these criteria, the way we make these decisions that acknowledge the different types of labor that go into getting here and I just want to be an advocate for those who are coming after me to attain this rank and to be able to achieve their full potential at the university,” said Tongson.

Nationwide, 76 percent of all college and university faculty members are white, compared to 55 percent of undergraduates so Professor’s Tongson visibility in the English department is catching the notice of her students. She’s written books and hosts a podcast called Waiting to X-Hale that examines pop culture from a Gen-X lens. 

“Academia writ large would benefit from rethinking some of its entrenched structures that tend to exclude different voices, different communities, especially in advancing the work of women and women of color,” said Tongson.

Advance your degree with women of color.