Queer Joy and Community Resilience: Voices from Stanford - Part Two

Queer Joy and Community Resilience: Voices from Stanford Part 2: Conversation with Vivek Tanna on queer mania, and queering academia Elaine Lai (she/they) who was in the first cohort of Stanford University’s Office for Religious and Spiritual Life’s Meeting the Moment program visits us again to present a two-part podcast titled “Queer Joy and Community Resilience: Voices from Stanford.” Part two features a conversation with Vivek Tanna (’22), leader of the student group Stanford Queer & Asian, who also serves as an LGBTQ+ health trainer. In this podcast, Vivek talks about his undergraduate thesis which is a creative auto-ethnography on queer mania, where he weaves uncertainty as an analytical thread between Religious Studies, psychology and sanity. Questions considered include: How do we queer the space of academia, and collapse disciplinary boundaries? What would it be to imagine a world in which coming out of the closet no longer needs to be actively disclosed to others? This podcast is made possible by Critical Consciousness and Anti-Oppressive Praxis program hosted by the Office of Inclusion, Community, and Integrative Learning at Stanford. Featuring: Elaine Lai (PhD Candidate) Vivek Tanna (’22) Podcast edited by Cahron Cross (’23) and Destiny Cunningham (’23) Elaine Lai (she/they) is a PhD candidate in the Religious Studies department at Stanford focusing on Buddhism. Their dissertation focuses on researching how time is narrated and embodied in Tibetan Buddhist literature, and what this might teach us about otherwise possibilities for storytelling and creating a more compassionate world. Prior to Stanford they spent ten years studying and working in China, Taiwan, India, Hong Kong, and Nepal where they made lifelong friends who have drastically influenced the way they see the world. Outside of academia, they have served as the co-president of the Buddhist Community at Stanford (BCAS). By night they write plays, screenplays, and TV pilots that feature unconventional female and queer characters.