Zooming into a PhD 2.0: A conversation with Aanchal Vij
By the Sussex Hive Scholars
We, Aanchal, Devyn and Louise, are this year's Hive Scholars. With support from SAGE, we have been working all year to foster a research community at the University of Sussex (especially during lockdown!). But we are also using our frequent Zoom meetings to learn about each other’s research, and we want to share our conversations with the SAGE community.
In this series of conversations, we will introduce ourselves, our research and report on how COVID-19 and lockdown has impacted our work. First up, Aanchal and Devyn interview Louise and talk about her research on international students, identity, social media, and how hard it is to just sit down and write during a pandemic. In this conversation, Devyn and Louise ask Aanchal about her work on comics and nostalgia and her experience of being an international student at Sussex.
Devyn: Could you introduce yourself and say a bit about your background?
Aanchal: My name is Aanchal and I'm from Delhi, India. I'm now in the third year of my PhD and I’m in the School of English.
Devyn: What's your research on?
Aanchal: I look at the relationship between nostalgia and American exceptionalism using contemporary American comics and graphic novels. Using nostalgia as a lens to think about American exceptionalism has allowed me to question why nations collectively want to remember and aspects of their history that they want to forget; and sometimes, the aspects that they want to misremember. It has been really helpful for me to then think about how that remembrance or forgetting manifests itself in American comics.
Louise: That's really interesting. Can you say a bit more about what American exceptionalism is?
Aanchal: It is essentially the idea that the nation believes that it is exceptional in its democracy, ideas of being a liberal country, and heroism. And while it is ultimately a myth, it acquires a kind of legitimacy in the American socio-cultural imagination and becomes a fact rather than the myth. The best example of that is the presidential campaign ‘Make America Great Again,’ which is entirely built on a sense of nostalgia and the belief that that America at one point was great. But nobody knows what that greatness is referring to. Nobody knows what that moment of greatness is.
Devyn: Do you look at specific historical events like the history of slavery to think about guilt?
Aanchal: To be honest, my research in the last year or so has moved quite further away from the ‘guilt’ aspect and moved more towards zooming into the relationship between nostalgia and American exceptionalism. I am also exploring counterfactual histories and disability studies to solidify my argument – which I don’t actually have yet! So yes, there are some aspects of guilt such as survivor’s guilt and imperial guilt that I look at, but it is not central to my overall thesis.
Louise: Could you say a bit more about how you’re working on disability?
Aanchal: This is a very watered-down version, but the idea is that in the American imagination, its history is completely able, it is full, whole, and not damaged in any way. This is also where this imagination coincides with the myth of exceptionalism where it believes to itself to be fully exceptionalist and functioning. And I am arguing that actually no, that history isn't able or whole and because it is so polyphonic and counterfactual and has so many cultural and immigrant voices that it is imperative for the nation to remember and acknowledge what it considers to be a ‘disability.’
Louise: I think that's really interesting because this is something most postgraduate research students experience where our research changes a lot in the duration of the PhD. Were there any other big changes for you?
Aanchal: Absolutely, I was previously only working with visual narratives, I was only looking at comics and graphic novels. But quickly I realised I needed to look at novels too because a comparative study of forms acquired significance in relation to nostalgia.
Devyn: So what texts are you looking at?
Aanchal: The comics/graphic novels I’m working on are Maus, Watchmen and Black Panther. The novels are The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Plot Against America, and The Water Dancer.
Louise: Great. And has Covid-19 affected your research much?
Aanchal: The research itself has slowed down and my pace has changed drastically. I didn’t have any field work or data collection to do so apart from the logistical difficulty of accessing books from a library, everything else is the same. Of course the lockdown has generally impacted my mental health, like for so many other researchers, which is why the progress is slower than I would have liked. My submission schedule has changed completely which has created a lot of financial insecurity for the foreseeable future.
Devyn: Has there been any support from the university in terms of funding?
Aanchal: No, not really. The university has been quite supportive of UKRI funded students but international students or university-funded students are feeling quite unsupported and abandoned at the moment. I hope the university soon realises that non-UKRI funded students are equally experiencing hardship and that some financial respite is required to abate the anxiety and panic around financial security.
Louise: Good luck, we hope something works out. Finally, has there been anything that has helped you during this odd few months?
Aanchal: I am one of the Hive Scholars at Sussex, like you girls, and we have been working really hard and actively trying to ensure that the PhD students feel supported and part of a community at this especially difficult time. Having that sense of community online has been incredibly helpful, whether it’s the daily check ins with other PhD students or having accountability buddies, it has been great. We also have regular workshops and social events like Tea and Talk and quiz evenings so it has been quite motivational!
If you want to know more about Aanchal, you can follow her on @VijAanchal on Twitter.