Pavithra Prasad: Blinded by the White: Rites of Masculinity and Sex in Indian Race Tourism
This talk explores the racial fantasies of young Indian men as they perform rites of transition into adulthood by traveling to intercultural contact zones. Thinking through how whiteness is positioned as a desirable, yet, dangerous sexual commodity, Prasad looks at the ways in which whiteness is discursively and performatively imagined by tourists to Goa, and reorders Indian masculinity through a politics of sexual success and failure.
Monday, May 8, 2017
12:00 PM - 11:30 AM
10383 Bunche Hall
Abstract: Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Goa, India, this talk explores the racial fantasies of young Indian men as they perform rites of transition into adulthood by traveling to intercultural contact zones. Thinking through how whiteness is positioned as a desirable, yet, dangerous sexual commodity, Prasad looks at the ways in which whiteness is discursively and performatively imagined by tourists to Goa, and reorders Indian masculinity through a politics of sexual success and failure. Ultimately, she asks that we understand the corporeal performance of middle-class masculinity, as rooted in the choreographed communicative failure with racial others.
BIO:
Pavithra Prasad is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at California State University, Northridge. She holds a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. Her interdisciplinary research engages ethnographic methodology, critical race theory, and decolonial/postcolonial studies to focus on transgressive expressive cultures in contemporary South Asia. Her work on electronic dance music and tourism has appeared in Text and Performance Quarterly, Ecumenica and Critical Arts. Pavi is a performer as well as a scholar – her creative work showcases research-driven solo performances that explore queer identity, the postcolonial imagination, and futurist music-making.