Collegiate Fellow; South Asian Studies
About
I work at the intersection of postcolonial Cultural Studies and theories of authoritarianism in the wake of European Fascism, with an emphasis on modern experiences of caste-based exclusion in the Global South.
My intellectual journey spans two countries, the US and India. I have earned my PhD from the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, Univesity of Minnesota. Before joining my PhD program, I received an M.Phil in Women's Studies and an MA in English Literature from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.
My dissertation, "Banality Remediated, Dalit Visions in Times of Spectacular Majoritarianism," articulated three overlapping fields of inquiry: the massive mediatization of Indian politics and its effect on democratic participation, the question of freedom under conditions of social, political, and intellectual tyranny, and the critical role of Dalit and Bahujan writers, filmmakers, artists, and activists in offering analysis of this moment of counter-revolution.
I am working towards turning this dissertation into a book-length manuscript.
I welcome queries about collaborations, presentation and mentorship from scholars in the US, India and elsewhere.
Current research interests:
- Contemporary Indian Dalit literature and anti-caste cinema
- Affect
- Memory
- New Social Movements
- Biopolitics
- Theories of Authoritarianism
- Spectacle
- Media and Politics
Representative Publications:
* “Why Should My Life be Sacrifice to One man?” The paradoxes of Dalit Militancy in Malika Amar Shaikh’s memoir, I Want to Destroy Myself in the Journal of Narrative Theory. Fall 2023.
* “When the critic stumbles: Legal violence and its unacknowledged terrain in Chaitanya Tamhane’s film Court”, Economic and Political Weekly. Vol. 53. Issue No. 23, 09 June, 2018.
* Review of Shailaja Paik’s The Vulgarity of Caste (2022) in Journal of Feminist Theory and Performance. 2024.
* Review essay of Soumyabrata Choudhury’s Ambedkar and Other Immortals. An Untouchable Research Program (2018). Navayana. Cultural Critique, University of Minnesota. 2022.
Upcoming courses:
- South Asian Feminism: Contemporary Expressions
- Festivals of South Asia
