Interview with Dr. Sreyoshi Sarkar
on practical and spiritual approaches to research
You can listen to an audio recording of this interview via the voiceover above. Enjoy!
Welcome to another exciting interview, everyone! Today I’m chatting with Dr. Sreyoshi Sarkar, an assistant professor of postcolonial literature and cinema.
She lives in the Midwest with her amazing partner and her 3-year old sweet and sassy daughter. She loves walking, Bollywood love songs from the 90s, podcasts about planners, and parenting. She is grateful that she can still “read” via audiobooks on her hour-long commute. Her current book project focuses on how 21st. C South Asian conflict narratives highlight the important role that plants, animals, waterbodies, and non-living things play in both human survival and rehabilitation in contexts of everyday violence and disruption. Writing this manuscript has been a spiritual process for her; it reinforced the importance of slowing down and paying attention to each other and our immediate ecologies (e.g., giving our full attention to the cardinal hopping around on the tree in front of the house even if we can only afford 5 seconds of that) if we are to live fully as ourselves – as vulnerable, mortal, and unique individuals. Future dream projects include a non-fiction book about the struggles of first generation immigrant motherhood and the experience of time.
Kate: Welcome, Sreyoshi! I’m thrilled that you had the time and capacity for this interview and I’m excited for you to share your insights with readers today. You and I met through Productivity Coaching when you hired me to support you in the process of finishing your book manuscript. I feel so lucky to have learned about your fascinating research through our work together. For folks who aren’t as fortunate as I am to have had hours of conversations with you, could you share a bit about your research focuses and what makes them so intriguing to you?
Sreyoshi: Thanks for having me, Kate!
My research looks at how contemporary literature and films about South Asian conflict zones, e.g. the Sri Lankan civil war, the ongoing Kashmir conflict etc., focus so much on the ecologies and ecological encounters that constitute the war zone. These human-nonhuman encounters are shown to dislodge the violence from within the conflict zone enabling people to survive and whole communities to rebuild their destroyed lives from scratch. For instance, Kashmiri-American filmmaker Musa Syeed’s film Valley of Saints — one of the films I look at in my work — is set in India-occupied Kashmir. What intrigued me was not just how it bore witness to the pollution of the Dal lake in Srinagar — a lot of postcolonial scholars have done brilliant work on war and its impact on the environment — but this film also documents how the Dal lake continues to support people throughout the daily gunfights, curfews, unemployment and other disruptions of regular life due to the Indian military occupation. It does this by providing a living for the local boatsmen, creating community through vegetable markets on-the-water, creating space for play and fishing. In other words, the Dal lake creates space for people to come together and live a little even in the midst of everyday political-military violence that has been ongoing since the early 1980s. Moreover, towards the end when the main protagonist plans on going away to Delhi because he and his best friend cannot have any stable, financial future in Srinagar given the raging violence, he decides to fulfill his promise to his old uncle and repair their bathroom before leaving. In the process of working with the local plants and soil which takes up a day or so he becomes wholly changed. His immersion in the local ecosystem — slowing down and paying attention to the plants, water bodies, soil, and homes that are his cohabitants — helps him reclaim agency, reclaim his own self, and dignity. Creativity with these cohabitants makes him realize the pointlessness of blindly pursuing a linear line of progress and toxic modernity which we all seem to be governed by. He realizes there is no point in running elsewhere for a better life. In working with the ecosystem the film shows how he feels human again and realizes what is meaningful about living for him. That really blew my mind!
I’m not suggesting that money or moving up the socio-economic ladder is not important and could be the most important thing for many of us. But for me what stood out in this film and my other texts is how the most disenfranchised people in such situations are looking to their ecological “messmates” (to borrow Donna Haraway’s term) to dislodge the violence even if momentarily, to reclaim their humanity, dignity, and creativity. How do we in relatively peaceful places not see and practice this, especially when our planet is crumbling from so much political violence and ecological challenges?
I wrote this book to show how these South Asian narratives are literally showing us the way to take the first steps towards a deeply intertwined socio-ecological justice by “paying attention” to the things, surroundings, and people you encounter everyday. Instead of glazing over that beautiful orange-brown-green Fall foliage along the road, what might we feel and know about ourselves and this world if we could be fully present with its colors for a second even? Even as I write an academic book my hope is that it will be accessible to the larger public especially in its message about socio-ecological justice through slowing down, living in time and with the ecosystem we are a part of, and how that constitutes powerful dissent and change in this day and age of toxic neoliberal “progress” and socio-political othering.
Kate: Could you tell me about systems that have been helpful for you as a busy professor and parent who is also writing a book? How has Productivity Coaching or other strategies helped you navigate these overlapping responsibilities?
Sreyoshi: The 2 things that have been most helpful for me especially after becoming a parent — which I would say has definitely made life quite busy — are:
(1) Being okay with working in short bursts of time when I do not have a whole hour or more available or the energy or focus to make good use of long periods of time. For instance, I list 15-minute research tasks — write 5 lines about x-topic OR look for book reviews on XYZ novel and copy-paste the links to a Word doc — when I break down my writing projects into tasks. Also, it does not always have to be writing tasks strictly, but broadly. In this process I have noticed, as have many academic moms before me, that even reconnecting to your scholarly writing project for 2-5 mins a day if you cannot do anything else, still keeps you on the path of progress. That is also why I loved your blog post on “trending.” It made me feel seen and accepted as I am and invites me to practice my scholarship with my body, mind, and soul. Such a radical and essential practice in today’s world! This is why I love working with you, Kate! You really do think outside of the box.
And then moving to point #2 - Breaking down my task list to the granular level. For instance, the spring semester is typically a rough season for me. There is a lot happening in terms of teaching and service work as well as care work given how spring is the season when we are all more prone to fall ill — adults and kids alike. So, there are bound to be times when I drop the ball on my article or book chapter for a couple weeks or even a month and then it becomes hard to reconnect to said project. At that point I will often put down stupid things on my task list, e.g. open the black file OR read the first sentence of your paper. They work beautifully for me. So, in sum I feel like as you grow up in this profession, in your life, and the world you need to bring all that knowing into how you do your work. And again, that is where Kate, your productivity coaching has come in so helpful. When you ask me questions like “what kind of a lift might this be for you?” — you get me thinking about how much energy and time X task will require.
In theory, I have known to do this kind of planning for a while now thanks to the NCFDD’s Faculty Success Program, Cathay Mazak’s webinars, and being a productivity geek. But it is a privilege to be able to discuss it with someone who knows my stuff and their stuff and lets me do the thinking while they are taking amazing, detailed notes for me.
Finally, I am grateful and lucky to have a partner and daughter who love me for who I am. Knowing that no matter how my day and work went I have my people to come home to is priceless. Parenting sucks out all my energy; it’s seriously frustrating so often. But my kiddo also truly brings me deep spiritual fulfillment — I feel the throbbing heart of life in her eyes and body language and laughter and anger and tantrums and that humbles me. Not to say that I feel all those things when she’s in the throes of a tantrum. Then I’m more like, “Why did we do this to ourselves??!” (Haha!)
Kate: I was delighted to learn that we have a shared interest in Oliver Burkeman’s writing on time management – if we can call what he writes about truly time management, as it feels more like “life satisfaction management” to me. I’m almost finished with Burkeman’s new book, Meditations for Mortals, which I recommend, and I know we both enjoyed his book Four Thousand Weeks. What drew you towards Burkeman’s writing about time and attention?
Sreyoshi: What drew my attention to him was the “four hour working day” concept. I found out about him right about when my daughter was 5 months old. My husband and I were struggling to figure out how on earth we were going to get anything done with having to tend to this little human being 24/7. I don’t function very well without 8 hours of undisturbed sleep at night and that did not happen till my daughter was 2.5 years old. Additionally, we had no family around. My colleagues were extremely supportive but the hands-on work was entirely up to my husband and I. So that’s where I picked up Burkeman. And then I began listening to him on my hour-long commutes to work and fell in love with Four Thousand Weeks. I felt an immediate kinship with him because he talks about how his approach to “productivity” thinking changed once he became a parent as well. I had already begun thinking about the “remaining half of life” in my late thirties, even before I had become a parent. And Burkeman’s putting a number to the weeks left, while kind of scary, was also clarifying. His “life satisfaction management” — as you rightly call it — makes complete sense to me. But while it convinced me I feel like I still struggle to put it into practice. That is why I love it when folks from other podcasts I listen to interview him. As he talks about the basic ideas in his book in these different contexts, e.g. parenting, relationships, creativity, and work success, you get a little bit more of how his stuff might apply to your life. Or even just different ways to think about what he has to say about spending the remaining weeks of your life.
I am looking forward to reading his next book that you recommended! I remember he mentioned in an interview that he did not want to rush into writing another book till he had something really valuable to offer his readers. So, I am really excited about what he has to say in this one - maybe my winter break travel read! I also do love his writing style — his engagement with Plato and Socrates and various other authors enriched my reading experience. It truly felt like a life narrative, kind of a literary read rather than a self-help book.
Kate: To close out our interview today, what’s something you learned through your research that you think would be important for other folks to know?
Sreyoshi: I think I’ve already highlighted the content takeaway in my response to your first question. So, would it be ok if I shared something about the process of writing the book?
So, my book is an academic monograph — and that is a LONG process and as you know, it all came together for me over last summer working with you Kate. But what came before was all in little bits and pieces — probably more 5-minute and 15-minute tasks than 2-hour focused writing sessions. It also included lots of walks, writing out claims and then second-guessing them, thinking it was terrible work, being tired of it and instead working on that second beloved book project, procrastinating on it, binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy yet again, thinking about a sub-claim as I dropped off my daughter to daycare, and being fully present with my daughter as I read to her because I had no clue what my through-line was for a certain chapter. In other words, this is not a waste of time, you are neither a bad academic nor do you suck as a parent. It is okay if you’re not spouting theory like your other brilliant academic friends or if you cannot wait to finish this writing project so you can get onto writing your actual dream project. This is not something discussed or shared much in academia. But there are as many kinds of academics as the people they are. And it is all of that together that is truly the valuable knowledge-making project that is a book or article or conference paper or teaching session.
Even as I say this, I have suffered and continue to struggle with imposter syndrome a lot. But over the years academic friends, therapy, the individual coaching sessions at the NCFDD’s Faculty Success Program, books like Burkeman’s and podcasts like The Compassionate Professor, and your blog posts and our coaching sessions, Kate, have helped me be more myself as an academic. In other words, as a believer in the energy of the self and the world, the book has been more than anything a learning experience for me. The research and writing process is teaching me to be okay with bringing the whole me into my academic work and that what I really want from this book is to bring my work into public life.
Thanks Kate for this lovely conversation! It is an honor to be featured on your blog.
Thank you so much again, Sreyoshi!
I’ll be back in two weeks with a helpful letter to support your productivity as you close out the year. If you’d like some additional resources between now and then, I invite you to check out my free Sustainable Productivity Planner here.
Take care and talk soon,
Dr. Kate