SAC presents: Christopher Lee

"Teashops, Toastmasters and Transnationalism: Urdu Poets and Global Flows in North India and the Arabian Gulf" This paper will consider the impacts of transnational processes on two South Asian Muslim communities, working-class silk weavers in Varanasi, India, and white-collar South Asian expatriates in the Arabian Gulf, using the lens of contemporary Urdu language poetry performances.  While Urdu literary culture may seem an unusual locus for an examination of the impact of globalization, the performance and reception of poetry is a fruitful way to consider the experiences of globalization by South Asians of disparate economic, regional and religious backgrounds, as poetry is a significant cultural performance that brings into focus local and transnational processes while reflecting upon and helping construct important aspects of community as well as cultural and religious identities.