India Coordinator, Research Grant for "Victorian Diversities Research Network", UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), 2023 [IIT Hyderabad Partner Organization], in association with Kingston University UK
Coordinator, Public Humanities Initiative, IIT Hyderabad, Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) Major Research Grant
My interest lies in the areas of South-Asian diaspora studies, postcolonial studies, postsecular studies, and nineteenth-century studies. As a Victorianist, I have worked extensively on Anglo-Indian narratives as part of my first published monograph and the second monograph currently underway. I examine the queer diaspora politics in my courses and publications. A significant chunk of my monograph (Postsecular Theory: Texts and Contexts) is centred on narratives of hijab in the global South (including South Asia). I devote sustained attention to the cultural productions of South Asia and the depictions of sexual violence and gender politics in these works. My social sector projects located in various urban and peri-urban Indian locations center on prevention of domestic violence, HIV and gendered violence, sexual harassment in workplaces, and intrafamilial sexual abuse and intimate partner violence. I am the founder and coordinator of the Public Humanities Initiative at Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad ---a hub through which these social sector projects are channelled, and from where several dissemination efforts have been planned across Indian cities in 2025-6. As the India coordinator of a UKRI grant, I will be organizing a UKRI international conference at IIT Hyderabad in 2025 that will be focused on 'The Nineteenth Century and South Asia: Fluidities, Politics, Legacies.'
It would be wonderful to be able to connect in a more in-depth and focused manner with researchers who work on South Asian diaspora and the 'postcolony' with a focus on gender and sexuality, religion and secularism, developmental activism, and pedagogical intervention.