Sexuality & Nationalism in South Asia is a series of critical interdisciplinary reflections on the enmeshment of discourses and practices of sexuality with contemporary nationalist forms in South Asia.

These conversations broadly respond to the following question: in the backdrop of rising authoritarianism and shrinking public freedoms, how do we understand the inclusion of certain non-normative sexualities and genders into legalized forms of citizenship?

These talks explore the ways in which nation and region determine contemporary understandings of gendered and sexual life as well as how nation and state formations are reified and redefined through non-normative gendered and sexual practices and activisms. Attending to this urgency through the lens of caste, trans* embodiments, decolonization, homopopulism and homocapitalism, the spectre of AIDS, and questions of modernity and neoliberalization, each talk hosts two scholars in conversation with one another.

The series is co-presented with the Centre for Feminist Research at York University.


Series Schedule:

Friday, 11 March 2022 | 09:00 to 10:00 EST | Niharika Banerjea (Ambedkar University Delhi) and Rahul Rao (University of St. Andrews) will speak about homonationalism, homocapitalism and homopopulism in South Asia. Click here for the YouTube recording.

Friday, 15 April 2022 | 13:30 to 14:30 EDT | Naveen Minai (University of Toronto) and Nayma Qayum (Manhattanville College). RSVP here

Monday, 18 April 2022 | 10:30 to 11:30 EDT | Adnan Hossain (Utrecht University) and Themal Ellawala (University of Illinois, Chicago). RSVP here

Friday, 22 April 2022 | 13:00 to 14:30 EDT | Aniruddha Dutta (University of Iowa), Vaibhav Saria (Simon Fraser University) and Gowri Vijayakumar (Brandeis University). RSVP here

For more information: ycar@yorku.ca.