Meet Zahra Rizvi from India for this week’s #humansofoiss! Zahra grew up in Delhi, India. She did her undergraduate and Master’s studies at Delhi University, and she is doing her Ph.D. in the English Department at Jamia Millia Islamia. She was able to get the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Grant to conduct research here at Yale, where she can focus on finishing her thesis.
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For her research, Zahra works on young adult dystopian literature and media, such as The Hunger Games. She looks at the novels, or the films and video games inspired by the novels, so that she can have a better understanding of how youth has an impact on the contemporary world, and how the youth can pick up the symbols from pop culture and incorporate them into their life and struggles.
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When asked about her hobbies, Zahra told me she loves reading and crochet and her guilty pleasure is watching K-Dramas. She is also really into pop culture and she will probably get the references easily. She is so happy to be in the US where she has been able to go to a lot of K-pop concerts while also attending conferences and working on collaborations. However, being away from home helps Zahra appreciate what she used to have there even more, such as her beloved family and friends and even things like easier public transportation. Another fun fact about her is that she can speak a number of languages including English, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Korean, Punjabi, and even some Latin, which she picked up growing up and during her studies.
