Harvard University has recently hired a visiting professor in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality department whose alter ego is a drag queen who goes by the name of “LaWhore Vagistan.”
The department announced in July it is bringing on Kareem Khubchandani to teach classes on “Queer Ethnography” and “RuPaulitics: Drag, Race, and Desire.” Khubchandani has an extensive career in drag queen performance and is committed to bringing “the nightclub to the classroom, and vice versa, teaching critical race, postcolonial, and gender theory through lipsync and lecture.”
“I am an educator, scholar, and performer invested in feminist, queer, and trans everyday-aesthetics, particularly in South Asia and its diaspora,” Khubchandani’s personal website reads. “My work is committed to uplifting the creative ways that minoritarian subjects live inside of oppressive structures, especially how we use dance, fashion, and language to build something more beautiful for each other. I am an associate professor of theatre, dance, and performance studies at Tufts University. I also perform as LaWhore Vagistan, everyone’s favorite desi drag queen aunty.”
The professor’s “Queer Ethnography” course will study “gender and sexual dissidents,” such as “gay neighborhoods, trans raves, sex work, lesbian parties, BDSM dungeons, AIDS activism,” according to Harvard’s official course catalog. The “RuPaulitics” class will examine “contemporary and historical drag archives, as well as critical readings on race and gender” and “will provide students with robust tools to analyze drag.” Students enrolled in the course are required to attend drag shows and participate in “performance-based exercises.”
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Khubchandani has also authored two books, including “Decolonize Drag” and “Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife.” The male performer goes by “any pronouns” and also specializes in teaching “Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies,” “Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora” and “queer studies” as an associate professor at Tufts University.
“I chose ‘LaWhore’ because my family traces its origins to Pakistan: Lahore is an important city in Pakistan, and, well, I’m a bit of a whore,” Khubchandani once explained in an interview. “And Vagistan because I see the subcontinent as one, big, beautiful Vag … istan. Close your eyes and visualize it: India is the uterus-vagina, Pakistan and Bangladesh are the ovaries, Afghanistan, Nepal, Burma, and Bhutan are the fallopian tubes, and Sri Lanka is a little floating labia.”
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