Tayyab’s dissertation will focus on the emerging Islamic finance-disruption nexus, as well as how ethical/Islamic fintech can enhance financial inclusion through improved outcomes for under-represented groups (women, youth, minorities) in Pakistan. Before Cambridge, Tayyab was Associate Director with EY’s Strategy practice, working as a strategy consultant and Islamic finance expert. Tayyab’s academic background includes an LLM in Corporate Law from LSE, as well as publications (2 book chapters and 8 practitioners’ articles). Research interests: Islamic finance, fintech, disruption, innovation.

I did my Masters in English literature from Presidency University in Kolkata, India before joining the MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies funded by the Commonwealth Shared Scholarship Scheme and am currently working on the political caricature in India. The focus of my dissertation are the “Common Man” cartoons created by R.K. Laxman in the Times of India between 1950-2015. My interests are in post-colonial thought and literature, popular culture print culture and visual studies in South Asia.

The tentative title of my dissertation is : Caricaturing the Common Man: Reading the hegemonic discourses, representation and marginalisation within Indian democratic politics in the Common Man cartoons by R.K.Laxman between 1951 and 2015.

Before joining the MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies on a Eureka J. Kellett Fellowship, Nicole-Ann completed her BA in Art History at Columbia University, where she studied post-colonial Indian and Latin American art. Her research interests are centered on the intersections of religion and gendered nationalism with modern and contemporary Indian visual culture. Nicole-Ann’s dissertation will examine various renderings of the female body as mechanisms of religious and sociopolitical critique in post-Independence India, with special focuses on the artists F.N. Souza and Nalini Malani.

Tom completed his BA in History at the University of Sheffield before joining the MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies. He is interested in cultural connections across South and Southeast Asia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and his dissertation – provisionally titled ‘Ritual and Empire: Muharram in the Straits Settlements, c.1819-1864’ – will examine Muharram commemorations in Singapore, Penang, and Malacca, situating them within the sacred and devotional worlds of maritime Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. More broadly, Tom is interested in global histories of religion and science, especially in colonial contexts.

Fathima completed her BA with a major in English Literature and a minor in History from Eugene Lang at The New School in New York. She is currently working on tracing multiple modes of migration through post-colonial literature predominantly written on Punjab, Pakistan. Fathima will be researching on the effects and setbacks of the performative nature of “migration” post 1947, the anxieties of South Asian subjects who became citizens of two different countries while retaining the same province-hood and actors who, without movement, were automatically allocated a citizenship to a newly created Pakistan. Through literally figures who migrate within the subcontinent, her dissertation intends to portray real-time anxieties that have effected over twelve million South Asians.

Song completed her BA in Hindi Language and Literature and BA in history at Peking University. Her interest lies in the history and features of Sino-India relations and South Asia international politics. Her dissertation focuses on India’s cultural diplomacy, an emerging diplomatic strategy that is of increasing importance. By analyzing the definition, feature and forms of cultural diplomacy, the thesis aims to uncover its strategic significance from both international and domestic perspectives.