2023 Buffalo Undergraduate Conference on South Asia
Identity and Cultural Dissonance: Saturday April 1, 2023
In-person: 240 Capen Hall, University at Buffalo
Saturday
8:00 am – 8:45 am Breakfast
9:00 am - 10:15 am Panel 1: Resisting Monolithic Narratives of Identity in a Post-Colonial World
Panel Chair: Dr. Samina Raja, University at Buffalo
Imaan Azeem, Habib University, “Language and Identity in a Post-colonial Context: An ethnographic study amongst students in Karachi”
Rajkishore Mukherjee, University of Calcutta, “Identity, and its Role in South Asian Democracies”
Malavika Kannan, Stanford University, “Spirited Wives: Critiquing Early Nationalism Through the Life-Writings of 20th Century Women”
10:30 am - 12:15 pm Panel 2: Expressions of Cultural Resilience
Panel Chair: Dr. Nadine Shaanta Murshid, University at Buffalo
Caitlyn Marentette, University of Pennsylvania, “Emotion, Language, and Identity Politics in East Pakistan”
Neha Melwani, University at Toronto, “Creating Colonial Identities: The Impacts of British Colonial Forestry on Indian People”
Spoorthi Niranjan, FLAME University, “Caste Resistance to Caste Assimilation: The Brahminization of the Lingayat Community”
Kavya Srikanth, Stanford University, “Linguistic Identity Formation in Independent India”
12:15 pm - 1:00 pm lunch break
1:00 pm - 2:15 pm Panel 3: Transforming Cross-Cultural Depictions Across Entertainment
Panel Chair: Dr. Suparna Soni, Buffalo State University
Clara Walling, Hamilton College, “Artistic Dreaming and the Role of Sound in Diasporic Longing”
Leela Cullity, Occidental College, “Cross-Cultural Love in the South Asian Diaspora: A Comparative Analysis of Michael Showalter’s The Big Sick and Mira Nair’s The Namesake”
Nithya Balakrishnan, Michigan State University, “A Queen by any Other Name: The Construction of Hijras in Indian Cinema”
2:30 pm - 3:45 pm Panel 4: Community Implications of South Asian Diasporic Ties
Panel Chair: Dr. Christopher Lee, Canisius College
Vansh Ruhela, University of Toronto, “The Quota-Caste System: A Double-Edged Sword”
Kush Chaudhari, Vanderbilt University, “The Complexity of the Hindu Mother Cow Gives Rise to Diverse Hindu American Perspectives”
Jaret Rushing, Vanderbilt University, “Conceiving Hindu-Muslim Translation: Shared Materiality and Kinship in the Indo-Persian Cosmopolis”
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm Keynote Talk
New York City Council Member Shahana Hanif
“Being the First Muslim Woman Elected to the New York City Council:
What This Means For the Muslim Community and the Future of our Democracy”
Sponsors
The fifth annual South Asian Undergraduate Research Conference was made possible by a generous gift from the families of Dr. Vinod Rustgi and Dr. Anil Rustgi, as well as funding from the University at Buffalo Asia Research Institute and Asian Studies Program.
