Sharanya Sridhar, PhD candidate in the English Department, is one of the recipients of UMass DGS Mellon Fellowship for AY 2022-2023. She is completing her dissertation titled "Global Genres, Local Shakespeares: Embodiments of World Literature in Post-Independence Tamil Cinema" under the supervision of Dr. Jane Hwang Degenhardt. In bringing together texts conventionally separated by disciplinary boundaries, her project argues for the importance of linguistic diversity in scholarly conversations about World Literature. More broadly, her work seeks to map out archives from the dravidian linguistic tradition that remain under explored within Global Shakespeare Studies.
The WSIP collective coordinated by Dr. Laurie Doyle and Dr. Mwangi wa Gῖthῖnji has hosted several important collaborative events at UMass Amherst. Sridhar is grateful and excited to spend the next academic year working with a community of like-minded scholars and teachers committed to decolonizing the graduate curriculum.