Nicholas de Genova

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nicholas De Genova

Residence	New York
Citizenship	United States
Field	Anthropology, Ethnic Studies
Institutions	Stanford University, Columbia University
Alma mater	University of Chicago
Known for	"A million Mogadishus"

Nicholas de Genova is an assistant professor of anthropology and Latino Studies at Columbia University. His research centers primarily on the experience of Mexican-Americans in both Mexico and the United States, especially the transnational urban and conceptual spaces they inhabit. He is also concerned with the methodological problems of anthropology.

De Genova received his BA and PhD from the University of Chicago. Prior to his time at Columbia, he served as a visiting professor at Stanford University.

He is the author of Working the Boundaries: Race, Space, and "Illegality" in Mexican Chicago (2005), and co-author of Latino Crossings: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and the Politics of Race and Citizenship (2003). He is also the editor of Racial (Trans)Formations: Latinos and Asians Remaking the United States (2006).

De Genova briefly rose to fame for a statement he made during a faculty teach-in in 2003 protesting the Iraq War. De Genova said that he hoped U.S. soldiers would experience "a million Mogadishus", a reference to the bloody losses U.S. troops suffered in the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993. He also stated that "The only true heroes are those who find ways to defeat the U.S. military." [Ron Howell, "Radicals Speak Out At Columbia ‘Teach-In,’" NewsDay, March 27, 2003.]

In response, the U.S. Military Veterans of Columbia University wrote a letter addressed to Columbia President Lee Bollinger stating that De Genova's comments were "unacceptable" and demonstrated "his contempt and disregard for human life", and calling on the University to "issue an official condemnation of Professor De Genova’s comments and issue him a letter of reprimand or similar administrative punishment." For his comment De Genova was included among those listed in conservative commentator David Horowitz's book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.