Ms Nithila Kanagasabai | Tata Institute of Social Sciences

Ms Nithila Kanagasabai

Assistant Professor
Mumbai Campus, Centre for Critical Media Praxis, School of Media and Cultural Studies

Qualification

M.Phil. Women's Studies (TISS)
M.A. Media and Cultural Studies (TISS)
P.G. Diploma in Broadcast Journalism (Asian College of Journalism)B.A. English (Women's Christian College, University of Madras)

Contact

nithila.kanagasabai[at]tiss[dot]ac[dot]in

Nithila Kanagasabai is an Assistant Professor at the School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She is also a Doctoral Candidate in the Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies, at the same institute. She researches and writes in the areas of feminist media studies, feminist pedagogies, journalism studies, academic mobilities, research cultures, digital media, and friendship. Her work has been published in journals such as Feminist Media Studies, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Economic and Political Weekly, and Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics. She also recently co-edited Yaari: An Anthology on Friendship by Women and Queer Folx (2023), published by Yoda Press. Her earlier disciplinary training was in broadcast journalism, and she has worked as a reporter in prominent national news media companies.

Areas of work: Feminist Media Studies, Journalism Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Qualitative and Postqualitative research methods

Research Interests: gender and newsroom cultures, politics of knowledge production, academic mobilities, research cultures, digital media, feminist pedagogy, feminist epistemology, friendship.

Book

'Yaari – An Anthology on Friendship by Women and Queer Folx' co-edited with Dr. Shilpa Phadke. New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2023.

Journal Articles

'Fictions, Frictions and Fragments: Reflections on Feminist Futures of Research.' Australian Feminist Studies, 2024. 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2024.2374526

'Whose feminism is it anyway? Reinterpreting digital media and feminisms from the non-metropolitan global south,' Feminist Media Studies, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2024.2328054

'Forever Fields - Studying Knowledge Practices in the Global North: a view from the Global South,' Gender and Development, Vol. 31, Issue 2-3. 2023. pp 399 - 416. https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2023.2261765

'Forging Fraught Solidarities: Friendship and Feminist Activism in South Asia', Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, Vol. 7, Issue 1, 2023 (Co-authored with Prof. Shilpa Phadke). https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/12880

'Possibilities of transformation: Women's Studies in Tier II cities in Tamil Nadu, India', Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Vol. 39, Issue 5, 2018. pp 709-722. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2018.1448702

'In the Silences of a Newsroom: age, generation, and sexism in the Indian Television Newsroom', Feminist Media Studies, Vol. 16, Issue 4, 2016. pp 663-677. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2016.1193296

'The Din of Silence: Reconstructing the Keezhvenmani Dalit Massacre of 1968', SubVersions, Vol. 2, Issue 1, 2014. pp 105-130. http://subversions.tiss.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Nithila-Kanagasabai.pdf

Book Chapters

'In Defence of Indiscipline: Disciplining and Decentring Women's Studies in Non-metropolitan Tamil Nadu' In Panchali Ray and Shadab Bano (Eds.),Teaching/Writing Resistance: Women's Studies in Contemporary Times, Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd., 2024. [ISBN: 9789354429088]

'Beyond the Media Storm: Reflecting on Sexual Harassment in the News and the Newsrooms.' In Nicky Falkof, Shilpa Phadke and Srila Roy (Eds.), Intimacy and Injury: In the wake of #Metoo in India and South Africa. Manchester University Press, WITS University Press and Zubaan, 2022. [ISBN: 978-1-5261-5762-1]

'Language, Little Magazines, and Local Feminisms: A Case Study of Magazine Cultures and the Localization of Feminist Articulations.' In M. Sternadori and T. Holmes (Eds.) The Handbook of Magazine Studies, London: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing. Inc., 2020. [ISBN: 9781119168096]

'In the Silences of a Newsroom: Age, Generation, and Sexism in the Indian Television Newsroom.' In J. Keller, J. Littler and A. Winch (Eds.), An Intergenerational Feminist Media Studies: Conflicts and Connectivities, London: Routledge, 2018. [ISBN: 9781138563483]

'Gender and the Tamil Televisionscape.' In M.P. Srinivasan (Ed.), Multiculturalism and the Social Fabric in Australia, America, & India, Chennai: Emerald Publishers, 2018. [ISBN: 9788179664964]

'The Gendered Body in the Neoliberal Newsroom.' In B.M. Pirani and T. Smith (Eds.). Embodiment and Cultural Differences, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016. [ISBN: 9781443894678]

Co-authored Book Chapters

'Doing Feminist Community Media: Collectivizing in Online Spaces.' In Faiz Ullah, Anjali Monteiro and KP Jayasankar (Eds), Many Voices, Many Worlds: Critical Perspectives on Community Media in India, Sage, 2021. [ISBN: 9789391138462] (co-author with Shilpa Phadke)

Gajjala, R., Kaur, S., Ayyar, V., Kanagasabai, N. & Kandukuri, D. Dialogue Interlude: Centering Marginalized Feminists. In Gajjala, R. Digital Diasporas: Labor, Affect in Gendered Indian Digital Publics (pp. 91-108). UK: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2019. [ISBN: 9781783481156]

Essays, Articles, and Reports

'If We Centred Friendship – Editing and Anthology' co-written with Dr. Shilpa Phadke in FemAsia: Asian Women’s Journal, July 2023 Issue, 25 July 2023.

'Women (Not) Making News' in FemAsia - Asian Women's Journal, 25 January 2022.

'Reversing the Gaze: Research from Afar' in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 56, Issue No. 50, 11 December, 2021, p. 65-66.

'Going "Home" to do Fieldwork' in New Voices in Postcolonial Studies, 9 July 2021, p.16-21.

'Prajnya 16 Days Campaign Against Gender Violence: A Report on the Colloquium on Digital Media and Gender Violence' in GenderIT.org, 13 January 2014.

'Unspeakable Inequalities: A Blog Symposium' in The GRIT@Prajnya Blog, 25 November 2013.

Documentary Film Projects

2016: Additional Camerawork, Khule Asmaan ke Neeche (Under the Open Sky), a short documentary on girls and football in Mumbra.

2013: Co-Director and Editor, Daane Daane Pe, a short documentary that explores the intersections of identities and street food cultures in Mumbai.

2012: Co-Director and Editor, Badalte Nakshe, a short documentary that traverses the tenuous realm of children, memory and the riots of 1992-1993 in Bombay.

Research Projects (past & present)

Gender and Journalism
Translocal and transnational feminist knowledge mobilities
Friendship and its Possibilities (with Prof. Shilpa Phadke)
Calling the Shots: Women Directing Hindi Cinema (with Prof. Shilpa Phadke)

MA Media and Cultural Studies

Ways of Knowing: Introduction to Research Methodologies (2 credits)

Media and Cultural Studies Research (2 credits)

Working with Video I (4 credits)

MCS Media Project

MCS Research Project

CBCS

Mapping Friendship (co-taught with Prof. Shilpa Phadke and Himalika Mohanty)

Foundation Course

Module on Contemporary Media Ecologies in Foundation Course II: India's Development Challenges

Diploma in Gerontology

Ageing and Media (2 credits)