https://www.pranathidiwakar.com/about daily 0.75 2025-08-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/051d0044-a312-4690-9f3c-63689f9d0aeb/IMG_4947.jpg Contact Hi! I’m Pranathi (pruh-nuh-TEE). I’m a writer and researcher of music, culture, politics, and urban life with sociological and ethnographic training. I'm currently a Postdoctoral Researcher and Instructor at the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. In this role, I have been working on my own research and book manuscript. I have also been leading the Oak Woods Cemetery Project, which focuses on research, teaching, and public programming initiatives in connection with the historic cemetery. I graduated with a PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago in August 2022, and I was a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the Social Sciences from 2022-2024. My dissertation won the 2022 Saller Prize for the most outstanding dissertation in the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. My writing has been published in academic journals like Social Forces and City & Community, and a range of edited volumes. As a sociologist, I’m always looking for ways to use my training to tell compelling, thoroughly researched stories about how culture intersects with the politics of social, political, and spatial identities across geographies. Interviewing and teaching have honed my communication skills, and I’ve put them to use in collaborations with various stakeholders to produce public programming for the Oak Woods Cemetery Project; Starlight, a community arts space on Chicago’s Devon Ave.; and the Smart Museum of Art. I have also worked with New York Public Radio’s WQXR as a researcher and team member of the Every Voice podcast. My interests in research, writing, and audio, and the cultural realms of food, art, and music propel me to find new ways to learn and communicate knowledge of people, processes, and phenomena in the social world in meaningful ways. Growing up between Los Angeles and Chennai, India made me keenly aware of the workings of social power and social justice across different contexts, and I am committed to unpacking these parallels and distinctions in all my personal projects. Presently, I’m working on a book project based on my doctoral dissertation research that investigates the relationships between music, caste discrimination, and urban politics in contemporary India. I also manage several public history, multimedia, and personal audio and music projects, which you can read more about here. https://www.pranathidiwakar.com/resume daily 0.75 2023-10-16 https://www.pranathidiwakar.com/contact daily 0.75 2021-12-17 https://www.pranathidiwakar.com/writing daily 0.75 2025-08-29 https://www.pranathidiwakar.com/new-page-1 daily 0.75 2025-08-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/2b4d8757-5d99-450c-9aff-63f89181bd38/3Y1A7676.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/48f47fe0-fbe7-4b30-b805-fe1f08e237ad/3Y1A7572.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/4207e77a-0536-4452-93c4-ba69fe377915/3Y1A7354.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/c4b840a4-a6ee-45ce-a05f-c17f6747a665/wqxr+logo.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/7f677a01-dfe6-45bc-81d8-17fa174b4031/Smart+Museum+of+Art+logo.jpeg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/a696e7e1-d347-4c1f-a008-4fcff8851ba5/IMG_3120.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/ec74e558-9172-490b-898e-230bf7b00f84/IMG_3137.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/d84c2d0b-167c-4a20-b412-832e95967ae0/IMG_3119.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/fa56be0d-c3b6-4152-997a-c4a18c33af66/starlight_logo_final.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/33477bdc-459e-4be6-92d3-57b385e71dd1/Screen+Shot+2022-12-10+at+2.50.01+PM.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/8a03ab3a-4229-437e-a4d3-fd1c30a4d6e9/postock.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/7635fb64-d41a-491f-860d-a84c66af51ae/image000001.jpg https://www.pranathidiwakar.com/work daily 1.0 2023-10-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/4860adcb-d076-4e83-90fe-500252771b0b/IMG_6802.jpg Work - RESEARCH: MUSICAL POLITICS My ongoing book project uses insights gained from twelve months of fieldwork in Chennai, India involving ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews with members of two musical worlds: Carnatic music, which is seen as the preserve of “upper” caste and Brahmin participants; and Gaana music, which is associated with the participation of Dalit or previously “untouchable” caste communities. In this project, I show that music is a key terrain in which caste distinctions are inscribed and also challenged in urban spaces. This investigation of urban cultural politics reveals extant political cleavages, insidious forms of urban segregation, and the persistence of caste discrimination as well as its resistance through the cultural articulation of an anti-caste project. The book is based on my dissertation, Resounding Caste: Practices of Distinction, Urban Segregation, and Musical Politics in Chennai, India. The dissertation won the 2022 Saller Prize for the most outstanding dissertation in the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/f66b2ce6-2ce7-41c6-9f4b-6f186e184e2b/IMG_9141.jpg Work - WRITING & PUBLICATIONS My writing has featured in academic journals and magazines like Social Forces, City & Community, Contexts, Sectors, and Economic & Political Weekly. In my academic writing, I follow the ethnographic standard that favors rich, detailed description and careful sociological analysis. Most importantly, this tradition leads me to center my interlocutors and prioritize treating their stories with respect and dignity. In addition to academic writing, I enjoy writing long-form essays about music, food, and other facets of pop culture that explore questions of power, resistance, and social justice in the U.S., India, and the rest of the world. You can find more about my research and writing here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/4366b007-9370-4584-a058-64c0b0775616/AUDIO.jpg Work - MULTIMEDIA SCHOLARSHIP I use multimodal approaches including audio, photography, and film to disseminate research findings to public audiences. I have worked as a researcher with New York Public Radio’s WQXR for the Every Voice podcast, where I used archival and interview data and secondary materials to research blackface in the opera. I created, scripted, produced, and hosted Seasoned, a podcast that explores the sociopolitical underpinnings of everyday foods. I also co-created and co-curated a monthly playlist exchange series called Notes on Notes, which invited a collaborator to create a playlist and another to respond to it with a non-musical pairing. In addition to these projects, I curate playlists and sets for virtual and real-time DJ sessions and listening parties. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61aa54721dd92b705cb14cad/7752f30a-847f-45f1-a1c1-487529f8fa0e/starlight.jpg Work - MUSEUMS & ARTS I am interested in connecting my research experience with public scholarship and engagement through museums and arts spaces. I worked as a facilitator for starlight, a pop-up community arts space on Chicago’s Devon Ave. with a six-member team from the SpaceShift Collective to transform a former jewelry store into an arts space that hosted six artists-in-residence, multiple events (concerts, film screenings, workshops, listening and dance parties), a listening station and a reading nook. Working in collaboration with Northwestern University’s Race, Caste, and Colorism Project, I programmed anti-caste and anti-racist content, workshops, and materials into the 30+ events that took place at starlight. As a public practice intern at Chicago’s Smart Museum, I helped curate virtual events like Take Care, Be Well, and collaborated and worked with artists, researchers, musicians, institutional leaders, and educators to produce events of significance for the museum community.