[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

———- Forwarded message ———-

The Postcolonial Studies Group (PSG)

Spring 2015 Colloquium Series presents:

Rahul K. Gairola

*Migrations in Absentia: Multinational Digital *

*Advertising and Manipulation of Partition Trauma*

Friday, March 20th 2015

2:30 PM – 4:30 PM, Rm. 5414

The Graduate Center, CUNY

Rahul Gairola contributes to existing and new scholarship in Partition and
affect studies,

on the one hand, and cultural and digital humanities studies, on the other,
as the 70th

anniversary of the geo-political division of South Asia approaches in
2017. I begin by

proposing a rationale for two digital advertisements by Google and Coca
Cola that

attempt to capitalize on the trauma of Partition by celebrating both
products as facilitating

harmony between India and Pakistan. Indeed, these advertisements market
“happiness”

as the ultimate horizon of neoliberal experience for the subjects that they
depict. While I

do not here want to undermine the nostalgic value or the raw emotions
behind the

subjects and sentiments portrayed, I would argue that it is crucial to
question the ethical

dilemmas of marketing products that utopically represent the Partition’s
communal

bloodshed. In particular, these advertisements promise what I call
“migrations in

absentia” – or the promise of movement across borders without moving from
one’s geo-

political space. I conclude that despite the hegemonic pull of both ads, a
number of

resistant representations counter their influence in the digital public
sphere.

Rahul Krishna Gairola teaches in the Department of English at

Queens and York Colleges, The City University of New York

(CUNY). He completed a joint Ph.D. in English and Theory &

Criticism at the University of Washington after holding fellowships

at Cornell, Cambridge, and Humboldt universities, and the Simpson

Center for the Humanities. He has globally published and presented

academic pieces, and taught at a number of colleges and universities

in the U.S. His first book manuscript is titled Homelandings:

Diasporic Genealogies of Belonging and Nation, and is currently

under review at an academic press. He is, with Amritjit Singh and

Nalini Iyer, also Co-Editor of a collection of essays tentatively

titled Revisiting Partition. (rgairola@uw.edu)

• This topic was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by Matthew K. Gold (he/him).

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