"I am often asked the following question: 'Why are you a comparative literature major if you want to go on to become a human rights activist?'" Keya Advani '08 opened her Emerson grant proposal with this statement. Subsequently awarded the grant, Advani set out this summer to explore the potential of literature as an increasingly important vehicle of protest and social change as seen in the contemporary writing of the Indian Dalit community.
"Dalit," or "oppressed," refers to the heavily marginalized group of Indian people who were formerly known derogatorily as "untouchables." The Dalits are historically the "lowest" of the caste groups and have been limited to certain types of menial and bonded labor, segregated from the "upper castes," denied access to jobs, food, sanitary living conditions and even drinking water. Although the caste system is now constitutionally outlawed in India, in practice it still prevails, especially in the more rural parts of India, and the Dalits remain marginalized across the Indian subcontinent.
As Advani explained in her proposal, "some Dalit communities have emerged as powerful political forces" by participating in social change and political processes. Others have emerged as effective writers and intellectuals, and it is their work that Advani researched this summer. "I find literature to be a very powerful, though often subtle means of getting a forceful message across to a pretty wide audience," Advani explained. "Dalit literature, I think, is an archetype of a type of literature that actually uses words—stories, plays, poems—to get across a message of activist social consciousness."
Based in her home town of Delhi, India, Advani worked through a reading list of Dalit protest literature and met with writers and others, such as publishers and magazine editors and members of the street theatre group Jana Natya Manch, who dramatize issues of Dalit marginalization and exploitation. Her project adviser, Visiting Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature Laura Brueck, has worked with the Dalit writing community in Delhi and helped Advani set up meetings with members of that community. "I'm really trying to interview a cross-section of people, from writers and activists to journalists and academics, who will give me a broad vision of the spectrum of Dalit literature," she said.
Advani came to her first summer of research because she took a semester abroad and missed a class on Dalit literature (offered by Brueck). "I decided to do the reading for the course on my own, but to also look at whether the texts I was going to read really change the way people think about caste in India," she explained.
A rising senior, Advani will use her work this summer as part of a senior thesis that deals with protest literature of marginalized social groups, and then take her passion for activism into the job market. She hopes to go to South America and work for an organization that addresses issues of women's rights.
Advani's research this summer is funded by the Emerson Foundation Grant Program, which provides students with significant opportunities to work collaboratively with faculty mentors, researching an area of mutual interest. Recipients typically undertake some combination of fieldwork, laboratory investigation, library research and the development of teaching materials. A public presentation of their findings is required of all Emerson Scholars during the academic year.
-- by Lisbeth Redfield
"Dalit," or "oppressed," refers to the heavily marginalized group of Indian people who were formerly known derogatorily as "untouchables." The Dalits are historically the "lowest" of the caste groups and have been limited to certain types of menial and bonded labor, segregated from the "upper castes," denied access to jobs, food, sanitary living conditions and even drinking water. Although the caste system is now constitutionally outlawed in India, in practice it still prevails, especially in the more rural parts of India, and the Dalits remain marginalized across the Indian subcontinent.
As Advani explained in her proposal, "some Dalit communities have emerged as powerful political forces" by participating in social change and political processes. Others have emerged as effective writers and intellectuals, and it is their work that Advani researched this summer. "I find literature to be a very powerful, though often subtle means of getting a forceful message across to a pretty wide audience," Advani explained. "Dalit literature, I think, is an archetype of a type of literature that actually uses words—stories, plays, poems—to get across a message of activist social consciousness."
Based in her home town of Delhi, India, Advani worked through a reading list of Dalit protest literature and met with writers and others, such as publishers and magazine editors and members of the street theatre group Jana Natya Manch, who dramatize issues of Dalit marginalization and exploitation. Her project adviser, Visiting Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature Laura Brueck, has worked with the Dalit writing community in Delhi and helped Advani set up meetings with members of that community. "I'm really trying to interview a cross-section of people, from writers and activists to journalists and academics, who will give me a broad vision of the spectrum of Dalit literature," she said.
Advani came to her first summer of research because she took a semester abroad and missed a class on Dalit literature (offered by Brueck). "I decided to do the reading for the course on my own, but to also look at whether the texts I was going to read really change the way people think about caste in India," she explained.
A rising senior, Advani will use her work this summer as part of a senior thesis that deals with protest literature of marginalized social groups, and then take her passion for activism into the job market. She hopes to go to South America and work for an organization that addresses issues of women's rights.
Advani's research this summer is funded by the Emerson Foundation Grant Program, which provides students with significant opportunities to work collaboratively with faculty mentors, researching an area of mutual interest. Recipients typically undertake some combination of fieldwork, laboratory investigation, library research and the development of teaching materials. A public presentation of their findings is required of all Emerson Scholars during the academic year.
-- by Lisbeth Redfield
