Sanchita Gaur
Doctoral Student in Literature - Sanchita’s thesis is entitled Contours of Desire: Racial Intimacy and the Politics of Belonging in African American and Asian American Literature (1920–1960)
Research Project Title:
Contours of Desire: Racial Intimacy and the Politics of Belonging in African American and Asian American Literature (1920–1960)
Supervisors
Dr Fionnghuala Sweeney + Prof Anne Whitehead
Contact Details
Email: s.gaur2@newcastle.ac.uk
Research Interests
- American Ethnic Literature
- Race, Intimacy, and the Politics of Belonging
- War Narratives and Representations of Conflict
- Dystopian Literature and Speculative Fiction
Brief Outline of Research Project:
My project examines how desire shapes intimacy, identity, and belonging in African American and Asian American literature between 1920 and 1960. It explores how intimate relationships and emotional attachments are shaped by, and negotiate, racial hierarchies and structures of power.
Drawing on critical race studies and affect theory, the research approaches desire as more than romantic attraction, instead examining how it operates within broader structures of power, law, and cultural meaning.
By addressing the limited dialogue between African American and Asian American literary criticism, it develops a comparative account of how desire both sustains and unsettles racial hierarchies. In doing so, the research contributes to broader understandings of race, affect, intimacy, and belonging in twentieth-century American literature.
Research Activities
Publications
- Gaur, Sanchita, and Shripad Samant. “Beyond Resources: Plants, Colonial Violence, and Phytocriticism in Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace.” In Revisiting Literary Ideologies: A 21st Century Viewpoint, edited by Dinesh Kumar. Doaba House Publications, New Delhi, forthcoming.