Sunnie Rucker-Chang works, writes, and researches on the social construction of race and culture as it relates to privileged and marginalized communities in Central and Southeast Europe. In her research, Rucker-Chang focuses on how literature and film contribute to culture and nationalist identities, especially in the creation and maintenance of racialized communities in Southeast Europe, and how the demographics of a field shape pedagogy and community participation. Her other research interests include émigré and exile literature and the application of post-colonial thought to post-socialist contexts. Her research and projects have been funded by American Association of University Women, American Councils, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The US National Security Agency, Taft Research Center, University Research Council, and US Russia Foundation.

She is Co-director and Co-PI of the REEES Undergraduate Think Tank, a program that works to develop a new generation of specialists in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and support innovative career paths, research agendas, and relationship-building capacity in the field. This national program is building a sustainable nationwide research and support network as well as a culture of belonging among university centers, faculty mentors, and undergraduate students underrepresented and underserved in this field.

Inclusive Strategies and Critical Pedagogies for East European and Eurasian Languages (Issues in the Teaching of East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures)  by Sunnie Rucker-Change and Rachel Stauffer (Academic Studies Press, 2026)

Since 2020, there have been various calls to action in the instruction of East European and Eurasian Languages to address the predominantly white demographics in the fields of Slavic and Eurasian studies and long-standing disparities in access and opportunities for students of the global majority. Despite these acknowledgements and drive to change the nature of the field, there persists a great deal of investigation and interrogation needed to realize the potential benefits of the inclusive East European and Eurasian language classroom. Inclusive Strategies and Critical Pedagogies for East European and Eurasian Languages offers new pathways for affirming and representing diversity, both in the regions of inquiry and in classrooms. 

Cultures of Mobility and Alterity: Crossing the Balkans and Beyond by Yana Hashamova, Oana Popescu-Sandu, and Sunnie Rucker-Chang (Liverpool University Press, 2022)

Advancing public dialogue surrounding the issues of migrants and refugees, the volume explores the dynamic representations of the recent movement of people from and through the Balkans. It investigates how people within the Balkans view their others, how the West regards the Balkans, and how emigrants from the Balkans reflect upon their experiences as members of cosmopolitan diasporic communities. Highlighting latent tensions between center and periphery and furthering the discussion of racialization related to the Balkans, the collection exposes contradictions in social values, which give rise to national anxieties. Approaching mobility from multiple disciplines, the volume examines several instances of border flows in media, literature, and culture in general, flows of ideas and people.
To analyze mobility to, from, and in the Balkans requires one to address the issue of difference, otherness, and race as it relates to South East Europe and as it is understood and reproduced in both transnational and local forms. The racialized category of “migrant” necessitates an understanding of how transnational concepts of race translate into constructs of whiteness and blackness and inform subject positions of the individual and motivate discourses of racialization within communities.

Roma Rights and Civil Rights: A Transatlantic Comparison by Felix B. Chang and Sunnie T. Rucker-Chang (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Roma Rights and Civil Rights tackles the movements for - and expressions of - equality for Roma in Central and Southeast Europe and African Americans from two complementary perspectives: law and cultural studies. Interdisciplinary in approach, the book engages with comparative law, European studies, cultural studies, and critical race theory. Its central contribution is to compare the experiences of Roma and African Americans regarding racialization, marginalization, and mobilization for equality. Deploying a novel approach, the book challenges conventional notions of civil rights and paradigms in Romani studies.

Chinese Migrants in Russia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe.  Felix B. Chang (Editor), Sunnie T. Rucker-Chang (Editor) (Routledge, 2012)

Much of the former Soviet bloc has become a destination for new Chinese migrants. Throughout Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Chinese migrants are engaged in entrepreneurial activities, primarily as petty merchants of consumer goods in unsteady economies. This book situates these migrants within the broader context of Chinese globalization and China’s economic "rise." It traces the origins of Chinese migration into the region, as well as the conditions that have allowed migrants to thrive. Furthermore, it discusses the perception that Chinese globalization is purely economic and explores the relationship among petty merchants, labourers and institutional investors. Finally, by examining the movement of China’s minorities into Central Asia, this book challenges the ethnic construct of new "Chinese" migration.