F185.

Desi Mythpunk: Indian Mythologies in Futurist Writing by South Asian Authors

Virtual
Friday, March 25, 2022
12:10 pm to 1:10 pm

 

Myths are often viewed as stories from “the past.” But a number of recent works shows that they can be used to engage with contemporary sociopolitical questions and imagine futuristic modes of being. This panel explores how and why South Asian authors employ myths in their poetry, graphic novels, and more. Authors discuss the refashioning of myths as a world-making force that may cultivate a sense of cultural heritage, subvert orientalist stereotypes, and bring alternative futures into being.



Outline & Supplemental Documents

Event Outline: DESI-MYTH_PUNK.pdf

Participants

Moderator:

Vidhu Aggarwal's book of poems, The Trouble with Humpadori, takes mobile forms in video, comics, and performance. She teaches postcolonial/transnational literatures and creative writing at Rollins College.

Bishakh Som is an Indian American trans femme visual artist. Her graphic novel Apsara Engine was the winner of a 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBTQ Comic. Her graphic memoir Spellbound  is also a Lambda finalist.

Rajiv Mohabir, poet and translator, translated I Even Regret Night (PEN/Heim Award) and is the author of The Cowherd's Son and The Taxidermist's Cut. He is an assistant professor of poetry at Auburn University's creative writing program.

Hari Alluri is the author of The Flayed City and an editor at Locked Horn Press. A winner of the 2020 Leonard A. Slade, Jr. Poetry Fellowship, he has received grants from the BC Arts Council and Canada Council of the Arts and fellowships from VONA/Voices and Las Dos Brujas writers workshops.

SJ Sindu is the author of Blue-Skinned Gods and Marriage of a Thousand Lies, which won a Publishing Triangle Award and was an ALA Stonewall Honor Book and a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Toronto.

#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center