2021 Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia

The 2021 conference was held on Zoom only due to COVID restrictions.

Panel Chair: Dr. Syrrina Ahsan Ali Haque, University at Buffalo

Syeda M. Bokhari, American University, “Object or Subjects: Women and Violence During the 1947 Partition”

Hannarose Manning, SUNY Geneseo, “Prostitution in Times of Rebellion: Examining the Roles Prostitutes Played in the 1857 Rebellion and the Legacy They Left Behind”

Olivia Frison De Angelis, The College of Wooster, “Criminals and Comic Relief: Hijra Misrepresentation in South Asian Films”

Mridula Sharma, University of Delhi, “Escaping Isolation(s): (Re)Constructing the Kashmiri Woman in Popular Imagination”

Panel Chair: Dr. Natalie Sarrazin, Associate Professor of Theatre and Music Studies at SUNY Brockport

Amna Ejaz, LUMS, “Netflix in Pakistan: Navigating Evolving Screen Modalities among Young Adults”

Nimra Tariq, LUMS , “Blood, Guns, and Words: Response to violence in Palestinian and Kashmiri rap music”

Uswah e Fatima, LUMS, “A Shared Past & An Ambivalent Future: The Dynamics Between the Pakistani and Indian Film Industries”

Panel Chair: Dr. Christopher Lee, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Canisius College

Sukanya Maity, Jadavpur University, “Fleeing from the Nations of Pandemics and Epidemics: Walls, Isolation”

Wajeeha Amir, LUMS, “Ajab Khan Afridi in Pashto Cinema: Changing Representations and Shifting Identities”

Panel Chair: Dr. Usman Hamid, Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at Hamilton College

Upasana Rajagopalan, Ashoka University,  “Caught in the web of inequalities: The Devadasis’ Isolation”

Nicholas Hom, Elon University,  “A Model of Religious Othering for Medieval Tamil Literature”

Lucas J Brenner, SUNY Geneseo,  “Wahhabism and the Isolation of Indian Muslims After the 1857 Rebellion”

Dr. Aniruddha Dutta, Associate Professor, Departments of Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies and Asian and Slavic Languages and Literature, University of Iowa

“Isolation to Responsibilization: Contradictions of Trans Activism in India during COVID-19”