Spring 2025 LMC Works in Progress Series: Megharaj Adhikari

By Rachel Brady

The Department of English offers Literature, Media, and Culture graduate students a valuable opportunity to refine their work and practice critical skills for job talks through its Works in Progress Series.

Megharaj Adhikari, a doctoral student in the LMC Program, presented an in-progress portion of his dissertation research in the Spring 2025 installment of WIPS. The work he shared Feb. 12, titled Land(un)locked, Landlinked, and the Oceanic Network, is only part of his larger project.

“I'm excited,” Adhikari says. “I think this could be one of the chapters for my dissertation.”

The series, held once a semester, brings together LMC graduate students and faculty to exchange ideas outside of classrooms and committees. The setting provides graduate students with an important opportunity to practice presenting and defending their research while gaining valuable feedback from LMC faculty.

“This series is about the grad students first and foremost and was designed so that they could get some sort of stability to their work,” says Associate Professor Christina Parker-Flynn, the WIPS faculty coordinator. “This event is a lot like what a job talk would look like.”

Additionally, the series is a great way for faculty to keep in touch with the graduate students and build community in the LMC program.

“I want to know more about what grad students are working on,” Parker-Flynn says, “the grad students that I might not get a chance to have in class or be on their committee in any sense.”

Adhikari’s Land(un)locked, Landlinked, and the Oceanic Network analyzes literature to investigate Nepal’s connection to the Indian Ocean. He uses an interdisciplinary approach, studying Nepal’s culture, environment, and politics.

“It's exciting to present in front of such a knowledgeable audience,” Adhikari says, referring to those present in the Williams Building Common Room. “That way I can improve my research and input more comprehensive information, more dimension to the research, so that it will be more thorough.”

“This presentation made me feel that this topic is even more important and very urgent,” he adds.

As Adhikari prepares his prospectus—an outline of his research goals, methods, and significance of his work—he can take the feedback from the series event and begin to improve his dissertation earlier in the process.

His current draft incorporates 10 different texts, including ones from T.S. Elliot and Langston Hughes. Using a literary overview, Adhikari expands his research to include contemporary literature from the Gulf and Indian Ocean region.

Frances Cushing Erving Professor of English Aaron Jaffe is Adhikari’s faculty advisor, and he says the first draft “was a jampacked paper already.

“He gave me 40 pages, and this was about 15,” Jaffe says. “He’s making so many connections, and these presentations are nerve-wracking because one of the things that happens in this room is job talks.

“That is the brilliance of Christina Parker-Flynn here. To get graduate students thinking, ‘Okay, I have to perform this for an audience.”

The Q-and-A session that follows a graduate student’s presentation prepares them for the job talk format and helps graduate students bridge the gap between taking exams and beginning to write their dissertations.

English department faculty members are actively involved in supporting the LMC-WIPS series, and several attended Adhikari’s presentation. The faculty members are happy to provide feedback and help students look at their research feedback with fresh eyes.

“Today’s event is a great example of the kind of presentation we want for the series,” says Parker-Flynn, adding that although Adhikari's research is in the beginning phases, she can see his work expanding into a larger analytical framework for his dissertation. “I love the interdisciplinary of cultural studies, environmental science, politics, and questions of immigration, all of which are hot topics in society.”

By the end of the two hours, Adhikari had presented to and interacted with his audience and fielded insightful questions, such as the significance of studying climate change through a literary framework and the idea of pure water as a commodity.

“I’m just honored to have graduate students like Megharaj,” Jaffe says.

Each semester, through the Works in Progress Series, the English department encourages LMC graduate students to excel.

Rachel Brady is an English-Editing, Writing, and Media major, with a minor in innovation.

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