Biography

Akshara Dafre (she/her) is a Doctoral Student in the English Department at Texas A&M University. With her research, she wishes to de-center studies of Popular Culture and Performance from the Global North, and bring to light niche and unique cultures and sub-cultures from the rest of the world that play a crucial role in shaping social identities, fostering community solidarities, and providing a means of artistic expression, for their producers, consumers, and participants. Her research project focuses on queer, female, and non-binary hip hop artists from the city of Mumbai, and involves an interdisciplinary approach with performance studies, urban studies, media theory, and queer theory.