Category: Culture
The Sociology Of Casual Sexual Encounters: Lisa Wade’s American Hookup
“What do the Industrial Revolution, the Roaring Twenties, the advent of the college fraternity, and the gay liberation movement have in common? According to sociologist Lisa Wade the link is the pervasive hookup culture that dominates the modern university experience in her fascinating new study examining the roots and realities of the phenomenon, American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus.” For Huffington Post Books, February 2017.
The Complicated and Sometimes Racist History of Referring to South Asians as “East Indian”
“Ultimately, the term ‘East Indian’ is a remnant of archaic geopolitical Eurocentric positioning and shouldn’t be used at all in a modern context, unless you are talking about people from the eastern part of India. To use it in any other context is playing to Orientalist — and yes, racist — othering of not only people from India, but also Native American populations throughout North America who shouldn’t still be called ‘Indian’ at all.” For Wear Your Voice Mag, Jan 2017.
When Travel Writing Demonstrates White Privilege: Condé Nast’s Problematic Snapshot of Sri Lanka
“There’s nothing like being from a country still suffering from the trauma and repercussions of a long and drawn-out civil war and then hearing from a white male travel writer that everything is hunky-dory now and people should start visiting the country again.” For Wear Your Voice Mag, January 2017.
Where are all the South Asians in Dystopian Films and TV?
“What The 100 was telling me, on no uncertain terms, is that an ethnicity that makes up one of the Earth’s most populous regions did not survive into the far future. What in the actual fuck.
Stopped in my tracks, I started thinking about all the different dystopian stories I’ve watched over the years, to realize over and over again that South Asians often don’t exist in the future. We’ve been erased.”
For Wear Your Voice Mag, December 2016.