Apoorva Sanagavarapu

CURRENT RESEARCH:
My doctoral project explores fanfiction communities to ask how LGBTQ+ members of the South Asian diaspora in America and Canada understand ambiguous and queered sexuality in their favourite Indian characters from popular American television shows. Using the characterizations of Apu Nahasapemmapetioln from The Simpsons, The Big Bang Theory’s “Raj” Koothrappali, and Mindy Lahiri from The Mindy Project as case studies, I investigate how LGBTQ+ and allied fans of the Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi diaspora receive and respond to how they are represented in popular American televisual fiction. More specifically, my audience reception study uses media ethnography, interviews, and questionnaires to answer questions such as:

1. Given the prominence of the “Western” portrayals of the effeminate and at times oversexualized foreign male poised to trick Caucasian people with his “exotic appeal,” to what extent does participation in fan communities serve as an emancipatory and culturally hybrid project that affords fans agency or enables them to create a community of like-minded people dealing with racialized, gendered, and sexualized identities?

2. Given the rise of “queer baiting,” how do fans and fanfiction/fandom communities consume these texts? Queer baiting is a marketing technique designed to draw in LGBTQ+ and allied audience members into a show, text, or franchise by hinting at the possibility of an LGBTQ+ character or relationship in the source text, but with no intention of following through on addressing the implications for LGBTQ+ communities. Two well-known examples of queer baiting in popular Western media include: the denial of the romantic relationship between Sherlock Holmes and his flatmate John Watson in the television show, Sherlock, and the denial of the romantic relationship between Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald in the film Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

3. How are the cross-cultural tropes of the hypersexualized yet effeminate gay male, or, the much less common “deranged lesbian” who has mental health issues, deployed in popular South Indian and Tollywood (Telugu language) films? I am especially interested in fans’ responses to the prevalence of reductive representations of LGBTQ+ members of the South Asian diaspora, and how these tropes are used to avoid more complicated and more inclusive—not to mention more taboo—discussions of LGBTQ+ issues.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATION:
– “Where are you Baby Pikachu? : A PowerPoint Presentation/[Prototype] Location-Based Mobile Game.” Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Canadian Game Studies Association (CGSA)/ Congrès annuel des sciences humaines 2021 Association canadienne d’études vidéoludiques (ACÉV), 1 June 2021. University of Alberta, Edmonton. Conference Presentation.

– “George Shrinks: Challenging Ableism, Ageism, and Racism in the Everyday Environment, While Simultaneously Encouraging Individuals’ Strengths Via Their Differences (Visible or Otherwise).” Carleton English Student Society The Literary Ordinary Conference, Carleton University English Graduate Student Society (CUEGSS), 1 May 2022. Carleton University, Ottawa. Conference Presentation.

SERVICE:
– Graduate Student Representative at Carleton’s English Department’s Departmental Meetings, 2022–2023.
– Departmental Representative for Graduate students in Carleton’s English Department at the Graduate Student Association (GSA), 2021–present.
– Graduate Student Representative for Graduate Faculty Board (GFB), 2022–2023.
– Member, Games Institute’s (GI’s) working group for Anti-racism, Decolonization, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI), 2020–2021.
– External Communications Officer for the Student Association for Graduates in English (SAGE), 2020–2021.
– Graduate Student Consultant to the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Arts Strategic Plan Task Force, 2020.
– Member/Unofficial Notetaker, Department of English Language and Literature’s Anti-Racism Action Plan Working Group, 2020.
– Member, Games Institute (GI), 2019–2021.
– MA – XDM Representative for Student Association for Graduates in English (SAGE), 2019–2020.