Malvika Nair

PhD student in Hispanic Studies

Email: malvika dot nair at warwick dot ac dot uk

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nairmalvika/

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6870-6590Link opens in a new window

About

I am a PhD student at the University of Warwick, and my research is supervised by Fabienne VialaLink opens in a new window from the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, and Rashmi VarmaLink opens in a new window from English and Comparative Literary Studies. I am supported by the Chancellor's International Scholarship.

Research

My PhD thesis is a comparative literature project that studies the representation of race and caste in Cuban and Indian poetry respectively, through the works of the progressive feminist poets Nancy Morejón and Meena Kandasamy. The thesis seeks to analyse the experiences of race and caste in a comparative framework. Further, it attempts to understand Morejón and Kandasamy's writing as literary activism which goes beyond staging these experiences as merely 'representations' and arguing for broader anti-imperialist and feminist solidarity.

Research Interests

Resistance and solidarity in literature
Racism and Blackness
Caste
Feminism in the Global South
Latin American literature

Teaching

2026-27: Incoming Senior Graduate Teaching Assistant for EN122: Modes of Reading, at the Department of English and Comparative Literary studies, University of Warwick.

2022-24: Teaching Assistant at the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University on the following Masters and undergraduate modules:

SP505: Latin American Literature (20th century) - I

SP403: Spanish Literature (Middle Ages)

SP303: Reading of Spanish Texts (Introduction to Hispanic Literatures)

SP307: Reading of Latin American texts up to Colonisation

Peer-reviewed Publications

“La otredad y los espacios: Las heterotopias en El Hereje.” Hispanic Horizon, vol. 2019, no. 35, 2023, pp. 162-173.
“You’re the Millstones Around my Neck: Women Negotiating Patriarchal Domestic Spaces and Identities in Nada and The God of Small Things.” Global Media Journal, vol. 13, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-17.

Book chapters

“There will be Rapping about the Dark Times: Political Hip Hop from Chile and India: Examining the Music of Ana Tijoux and Sumit Roy.” In Nomadic Subterfuges in Indo-Luso-Hispanic Narratives, Indrani Mukherjee et al. (eds), Kolkata: Dungri Publications, 2024.
“The Third Root of Latin America: Notes on the Field of Afro-Latin American Studies”, in C. Edwards & A. Pitre (Eds.) New Perspectives in Africana Studies, Hamilton Books. (2026).

Conference organiser

I co-organised the one-day interdisciplinary conference titled Is a Better World Possible? - Solidarity as a Conversation across TemporalitiesLink opens in a new window. The event was kindly supported by the Humanities Research Centre at the University of Warwick.

Conference Presentations

"Theorizing descent: Thinking comparatively about race and caste" at the SCS Postgraduate Conference, Cardiff, 16-17 April 2026.
"Making a better world possible? - Nancy Morejón’s literary activism" at the Postgraduates in Latin American Studies (PILAS) conference at the University of Leeds on 8 April 2026.
"The Third Root of Latin America? Notes on the Field of Afro-Latin American Studies" at the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS) 2026 Annual Conference, at the University of Leeds from 9-10 April 2026.
“¡Soy fuerza, fulgor y vida!”: Cuestiones de identidad y resistencia en la poesía de Aleida Vázquez at the 9th International Conference of Critical Geographies, Mexico City in October 2023 [Virtual mode].
“¡Justicia a mi identidad, justicia a mis derechos!”: Reading select poems of contemporary Afromexican activist-poets as tools of resistance against racism, patriarchy and social invisibility at the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-East England (CHASE) Feminist Symposium, at Birkbeck, University of London, in June 2023 [Virtual mode].
Black, Woman, Favelada: Benedita and the Afro-Brazilian Experience at the VII International Conference on Hispanism, Jawaharlal Nehru University in October 2022.
Las Mujeres Negras: The Life-worlds of Afrocubanas in the poetry of Nancy Morejón, Graduate Conference, Jawaharlal Nehru University in May 2022.

Scholarships and Awards

Chancellor’s International Scholarship at the University of Warwick, 2024-28.
Doctoral Fellowship, awarded by the Humanities Research Centre, University of Warwick, 2025-26.
Junior Research Fellowship, awarded by the University Grants Commission, India, 2019-23.
Rafael Iruzubieta Award, awarded to the student securing the highest CGPA in M.A. Spanish at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Consisting of a citation and a cash prize of INR 50,000 (roughly £450). 2022.

Qualifications

M.Phil in Spanish, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
M.A. in Spanish, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
B.A. (Honours) in English, The English and Foreign Languages University, Shillong, India.

Memberships

SLAS: Society for Latin American Studies, UK
SCS: Society for Caribbean Studies, UK
BASAS: British Association for South Asian Studies

Certifications

Certificate in Afro-Latin American Studies, Afro-Latin American Research Institute, Harvard University, April 2023.
Certified for B2 level in the DELE examination, which is an official title certifying the degree of competence and mastery of the Spanish language, granted by Spain's Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, January 2023