Mara Thacker, South Asian Studies & Global Popular Culture Librarian, is part of a team that has been awarded a $15,000 seed grant from the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2) at Washington University in Saint Louis.
The mission of CRE2 is to study how race and ethnicity are integral to the most complex and challenging issues of our time. The seed grant program aims to provide assistance in the development of research that has the potential to significantly enhance scientific and cultural methodologies.
“Our project — Turn the Page! — is the first comprehensive edited monograph about histories, contexts, and contemporary practices of comics in India. Our bold vision includes having content from comics creators, researchers, and academics to address existing gaps in public and scholarly understanding of comics in India through research articles, non-fiction comics, visual essays, first-person narratives, interviews, and illustrated data. I am excited about this grant because it gets us one step closer to making our book a reality,” said Thacker.
The team is headed by principal investigator, Shreyas Ravikrishnan, an assistant professor at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in Saint Louis. In addition to Thacker, the other Co-PIs are Vidyun Sabhaney, an independent comics practitioner and editor from Delhi, India, and Dr. Jeremy Stoll, an Associate Professor and Head of Science and Social Science at Columbus College of Art & Design.
