Swati Baruah

I am a PhD candidate in English (Literary Studies) at Georgia State University. I study literature from Northeast India under the queer-feminist lens to understand the experiences of the marginalized in a conflict-ridden zone of the global south. My dissertation investigates the mechanisms of border-making and the myth of nationhood in Northeast India, as I present the unique colonial history of Northeast India pertaining to the struggles for sovereignty by various ethnic communities against the Indian state. The literary intervention in my dissertation to discuss the region in relation to the Indian state seeks to understand the conflict-ridden relationship of powers and assimilation, and the institutions of nation-building, which are masculine and heteropatriarchal notions of nationalism. The queer-feminist framework I use to study nationalism in the Northeast enables the subversion of heteropatriarchal nationalism and problematizes monolithic definitions of nation-building and belonging in the Northeast. Although violence and oppression by the Indian state in the Northeast is a vastly researched area, the scholarship has rarely studied the violence as produced in the literature of the region, especially in queer voices and stories, under a queer-feminist framework. Here is a detailed summary of my dissertation. My dissertation is guided by Dr Renee Schatteman, Dr Neelofer Qadir, and Dr Megan Sinnott.

My other research interests are postcolonial, global south and world literature, feminist and queer studies. I’ve done my M.A. in English from Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi, and B.A. in English from the University of Delhi.

I’m also an avid reader, occasional hiker, traveler, crocheter, and videographer.