A Scholar and Magician Visits South Asian Studies at Yale

Shreeyash Palshikar is Post-Doctoral Associate and Lecturer in South Asian Studies and Political Science at Yale. Dr. Palshikar�s research interests focus on the role of media in identity politics and state formation in India. Dr. Palshikar is a Visiting Scholar at Yale for the 2008-2009 academic year and will also be here for 2009-2010.

Born in Pune, India but raised in Portland, Oregon, Dr. Palshikar is half-Indian, half-American. His parents met when his mother was volunteering in India on a Peace Corps mission. Dr. Palshikar received his B.A. from Amherst and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. While at Amherst, Dr. Palshikar created his own interdisciplinary major in South Asian Studies, drawing on the fields of anthropology, history and religion in addition to South Asian language courses. In constructing his course of study, he also took courses at Smith and Mt. Holyoke and spent his junior year abroad in Varanasi (Benares), India.

After graduating Amherst, Dr. Palshikar worked for two years in the media industry, first at a production company and then a marketing communications firm. The experience gave him a different perspective on how people use media and shaped his later work at the University of Chicago, where he earned his doctorate in South Asia Languages and Civilizations. At Chicago, he realized that little had been written on the propaganda use of media in reorganizing states in India which became the topic of his dissertation. He is currently revising his dissertation to broaden it to appeal to a wider audience in order to prepare it for publication. He has tentatively titled the book Breaking Bombay: Making Maharashtra.

At Yale in the fall, Dr. Palshikar taught a seminar on Violence in Modern South Asia. He is currently teaching a lecture on Democracy in Modern India. Initially describing Yale students as �really hardworking,� he drew comparisons between Yalies and students at Amherst, noting that students at both schools tend be well-rounded and involved in a lot of extracurricular activities. His courses have drawn students who have taken courses on India before, as well as those with no background in South Asia. He calls the group �a very good mix� and is happy to see that �even those approaching the material for the first time jump right in� to the discussion.

Born in India, raised in Portland, and educated in Amherst and Chicago, Dr. Palshikar has lived around the world. He loves the diversity of activity going on at Yale all the time but says that his favorite activity in New Haven is hiking on East Rock. Dr. Palshikar spent a year in India in 2004 on a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship before moving to the United Kingdom the following year. While in the UK, Dr. Palshikar taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. He also lived in Edinburgh, where he taught an online class at Oxford while working on his dissertation. He calls Edinburgh a �very magical sort of city [with] a weird sort of aura,� adding that he could very much see why J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series from an Edinburgh coffee shop.

Dr. Palshikar is somewhat of a Harry Potter himself, moonlighting as a performer and a scholar of magic when he is not busy examining propaganda and identity politics. When asked whether it was better to be a starving graduate student or a starving magician, Dr. Palshikar laughed and explained that most magicians can make a reasonable living from their work, though �probably less so in the current economy.� Growing up, he accompanied his father to Portland magic shops to buy props and supplies to send to his uncle in India, who was also a magician. While in college, Dr. Palshikar performed a few solo shows, including a Halloween s�ance his senior year. The s�ance featured a smoking and flaming skull that resulted in an accidental explosion that set off a fire alarm. Dr. Palshikar�s interest in magic really took off once he arrived in Chicago, where he found lots of opportunities to perform. He credits magic with giving him a �whole other social community while in grad school,� but noted that he has tried to combine his interest in South Asia with performing. At Chicago, Dr. Palshikar wrote his doctorate qualifying paper on Indian magic and magical perceptions of India. Though he has been performing less in the last few years, Dr. Palshikar�s magical talents can be seen in the upcoming South Asian Studies reception.