Dr.Rahul Krishna Gairola, from IIT Roorkee, Roorkee, will be delivering a seminar titled "India Rising: South Asian Digital Humanities, Online Advertising Critique, & Rural Literacy".

Abstract:

This presentation contributes to existing scholarship in the Digital Humanities and South Asian Studies by introducing and extending the scope of both fields into the intersection of both with postcolonial digital humanities. Coined #DHPoco by Roopika Risam and Adeline Koh, the emerging field seeks to excavate the ways in which digital platforms and the humanities shape and shift one another in the 21st century. The talk begins with a definition of #DHPoco, then moves towards introducing the key concepts and debates of the field while articulating its cultural stakes in both literary and cultural analysis. The second section of the talk engages a close reading of Coca Cola’s Small World Machines advertisement to apply the concepts aforementioned in the #DHPoco critique. In particular, I begin with Radhika Gajjala’s observations on South Asian studies and “technocultural agency” as a means for meditating on what exactly the digital advertisement is selling. A turn to Sara Ahmed’s incisive readings of happiness as a socio-political construct that is historically rooted allows us to critique the advertisement.

The Coca Cola advertisement suggests that the soda facilitates harmony between India and Pakistan. Indeed, the advertisement markets “happiness” as the ultimate horizon of neoliberal experience for the subjects it depicts. The illusion of “happiness” is deployed by Coca Cola throughout the cybersphere as a means for capturing new Asian markets while it promises happiness to those who consume Coca Cola products. While I do not here want to undermine the nostalgia or the raw emotions behind the subjects and sentiments portrayed, I would argue that we must question the ethical dilemmas of marketing products that utopically represent the relationship between India and Pakistan through Coca Cola sales. After screening the advertisement, I conclude “India Rising: South Asian Digital Humanities, Online Advertising Critique, and Rural Literacy” with a brief glimpse at the future of and practice of digital literacy in rural India. This includes a vision for improving education for children that engages initiatives already in place at the Indian Institutes of Technology across the country. 

About the Speaker:

Rahul Krishna Gairola is Assistant Professor of English & Comparative Literature at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India. He holds a joint Ph.D. in English Literature & Critical Theory from the University of Washington, Seattle. He is, with Amritjit Singh and Nalini Iyer, co-editor of a collection of essays titled Revisiting India’s Partition: Politics, Memories, & Culture (Lexington Books/ Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). He is working on two additional book projects – Homelandings: Diasporic Genealogies of Belonging in Nation and Digital Homes: Electronic Agency in 21st Century South Asia. He is an Article Editor for Postcolonial Text, and the Editor of salaam: the newsletter of the south asian literary association.