Anirban Baishya

PhD, Cinema and Media Studies, University of Southern California 2018

M.Phil., Cinema Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2013

M.A, Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2011

Anirban K. Baishya is a scholar of media studies with a special focus on digital cultures. He studies the impact of the cellphone and the internet on representations of the self and on public culture more generally. The materials he analyzes includes seemingly "trivial" media forms such as selfies, memes and GIFs. His work attempts to locate such global objects and technologies in various local contexts and puts them in conversation with broader social and political shifts. His other research areas include Cinema Studies, South Asian Studies and Surveillance Studies.

Special Issue (Co-edited), "South Asian Pornographies: Vernacular Formations of the Permissible and the Obscene,” Porn Studies 7:1, Vol. 7, Issue 1, 2020

“Transgressions in Toonland: Savita Bhabhi, Velamma and the Indian Adult Comic” co-written with Darshana S. Mini. Porn Studies (Special Issue: “South Asian Pornographies: Vernacular Formations of the Permissible and the Obscene”), Porn Studies Vol. 7, Issue 1, 2020.

“Translating Porn Studies: Lessons from the Vernacular,” co-written with Darshana S. Mini. Porn Studies (Special Issue: “South Asian Pornographies: Vernacular Formations of the Permissible and the Obscene”), Porn Studies, Vol. 7, Issue 1, 2020.

“Small Media and Everyday Life: Digital Media Beyond Big Data,” Spectator (The University of Southern California Journal of Film and Television Criticism), 39 (2), 2019.

“The Bully in the Pulpit: Digital Social Media and Right-wing Populist Technoculture” co-written with Nitin Govil. Communication, Culture & Critique (Special Issue: Media and the Extreme Right), Vol. 11 (2018)

“Restore, Revisit, Re-member: Reinstating the Region in Three Assamese Films” in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 40 (3), 2017.

“Pornography of Place: Location, leaks and Obscenity in Indian MMS porn video” in South Asian Popular Culture, 15 (1), 2017.

“#NaMo: The Political Work of the Selfie in the 2014 Indian General Elections” in International Journal of Communication, Vol. 9, 2015.

Fall 2019

Persuasion & Public Opinion

Media Culture & Globalization

Spring 2020

Media & the Arts

Social Media