The CURF was a unique opportunity to expand my research through a self-directed paper. With my mentor’s support, I was able to navigate this unique set-up to effectively tie my research on different topics of queer representation in popular Indian, specifically Hindi language, media together and explore options to expand my research. During my time in the CURF cohort, I was also able to put together my BPhil application and apply the project management skills I learned while writing my paper to set out a plan for my BPhil.
The CURF project allowed me an opportunity to update my knowledge of the ever-growing literature around my topic of interest. This was one major change from when I started my original research project and working on this paper led to me updating my previous more foundational papers to account for these new perspectives. During the research and writing process, what I found most helpful was having regular check-ins with my mentor and talking to and reading the blogs of the other student scholars in my cohort. A major benefit of being in an interdisciplinary cohort is learning about research approaches in other disciplines that could apply to your own work. Even if they don’t, it’s still encouraged creativity in me and helped me stay motivated to engage with my work in unique and untraditional ways.
During my time in this fellowship, I was able to apply to and was awarded the Brackenridge Fellowship for Summer 2024. I will be working on a paper titled “Sex, Love and Bisexuals: Why Hindi Web Series Love Bisexuality” which looks at the lack of bisexual characters in Popular Hindi Cinema and the seeming abundance of bisexual characters and discussions of bisexuality in popular Hindi Language web series. With this last paper, I will also be working on putting together my papers to create a coherent larger paper.
As part of my interest in underrepresented groups in South Asian pop culture, I have also started hosted a South Asian Music show at WPTS, the on-campus radio station. This new creative endeavor has become a site to connect with South Asian audiences and other audiences of South Asian media similar to the South Asian film culture student organization I started on campus, BYO Bollywood. These creative and social projects have supported my research in South Asian-American pop culture and provided me with spaces to discuss my research with one of the subjects of my work.
After graduation, I would be interested in digging deeper into representations of other underrepresented groups in contemporary popular Hindi media and into reception studies for media with LGBTQIA+ representation. I have also started working with globalization and regional film industries, specifically Malayalam cinema (which is based in my home state, Kerala, India), this year and there is an expanding field exploring queerness in Malayalam cinema which I would love to be a part of after this project.