Vijeta Saini
English PhD Student
Vijeta Saini (she/her/hers) is a Ph.D. student and the recipient of the CSSH Scholar at Northeastern University, with a concentration in Global Shakespeare Studies, Performance Studies, and Cultural Memory Studies. Her MA thesis, “The Merchant of The Empire: Shakespeare in Colonial and Postcolonial Punjab,” analyzed, for the first time, how people have engaged with Shakespeare in Punjab. While working on the thesis, she co-translated, directed, and collaborated with students from Punjab to stage a production of The Merchant of Venice in Punjabi and interviewed 350+ audience members to identify instances of Britain’s epistemic sovereignty and generate contrapuntal readings of the British and Indian culture. The production is currently a part of the MIT Global Shakespeares Video and Performance Archive. She has presented her research on production at Harvard’s Renaissance Colloquium and Theatre & Performance Studies Colloquium and Khalsa College, Amritsar. Besides working on Shakespeare and Punjab, she has also worked on Shakespeare and Indian cinema and presented her work at “Women and Indian Shakespeares Conference,” Queen’s University (Belfast), PAMLA (San Diego), and SAMLA (Atlanta). Also, she enjoys writing about herself in third person.
Contact: saini.vi@northeastern.edu
Previous Institutions: Northeastern University (MA); Guru Nanak Dev University (BA)
Program and Fields: PhD; Global Shakespearean Studies, Performance Studies, Cultural Anthropology