This event is a joint collaboration with KPU’s Faculty of Arts and UBC’s Department of Asian Studies. This talk is free, open to the public, and will be delivered in an accessible mix of English and Punjabi. Registration is required (please find the registration form above).
In colonial Punjab, several Punjabi authors, reformers, and practitioners of Ayurveda, Unani, and/or western medicine – Daktari, wrote books and pamphlets on improving sexual and reproductive health of Punjabis. In this talk, Azad will discuss some of the contexts that enabled them to write on such subjects as well as how these discussions and debates influenced popular conceptions of masculinity, love, and sex. The talk will provide an overview of key debates on health, sexuality, and gender during this period.
Date & Time:
Thursday, June 6, 2024 | 6:00pm – 8:00pm PDT
Location:
Newton Branch Library Meeting Room, 13795 70 Avenue Surrey, BC V3W 0E1
Speaker
Nikita Azad (they/she) is a final-year PhD candidate in History at the University of Oxford where she works on the history of medicine and embodiment, particularly, gender, sexuality, and emotions in the colonial Punjabi print sphere from 1898 to 1948. She is also a Rhodes Scholar and a Welcome Trust Doctoral Scholar at Oxford. Born and brought up in Jalandhar, she often writes about gender, selfhood, the natural world, and human-nonhuman relationships. She is a Nan Shepherd Prize longlisted author (2021) and the author of Dakhalandazi (Autumn Art, 2022), a Punjabi essay collection on gender, sexuality, and feminism in Punjab. Her writings have appeared (and been featured) in The Guardian, BBC, Bad Lilies, Longreads, Aeon, The Willowherb Review, Dust Poetry Magazine, History Workshop Journal, The Quint, The Indian Express, Punjabi Tribune, and more.