Shreya Sangai (MA ’21) Publishes Chapter on Indian Comics and Graphic Novels

Shreya Sangai (MA ’21) has published a chapter entitled, “Embodiments of Virtue: Depiction of Caste in Popular Indian Comics and Graphic Novels” in Graphic Embodiments: Perspectives on Health and Embodiment in Graphic Narratives, edited by Lisa De Tora and Jodi Cressman. “Embodiments of Virtue” compares mythological characters’ images in the Indian graphic narratives. Sangai looks at the characters’ body shapes, postures, costumes, and dialogues as visual signifiers of the Hindu caste system; for instance, vis-à-vis the stout, tall upper caste bodies, the tribal bodies are famished. Although exclusionary depictions are still prevalent , there are lesser popular narratives like The Gardener in the Wasteland that challenge such casteist images and offer alternative ways of drawing discriminated bodies.

Read the chapter and the book here.