BUZZ
Key Takeaways
- Harvard University has appointed Kareem Khubchandani, who performs as the drag queen LaWhore Vagistan, as a visiting professor in its Women, Gender, and Sexuality department for the academic year, teaching 'Queer Ethnography' and 'RuPaulitics'.
- The courses will explore ethnographic research methods related to bodies, pleasure, power, drag history, and critical gender and race readings.
- Khubchandani, known for his drag persona, has authored several LGBT-focused books, with a new release, 'Lessons in Drag', on the intersection of academia and drag performance.
Harvard University appointed Kareem Khubchandani, a Tufts University associate professor who performs as the drag queen LaWhore Vagistan, as a visiting professor in its Women, Gender, and Sexuality department for this academic year.
Khubchandani will teach “Queer Ethnography” this fall and “RuPaulitics: Drag, Race, and Desire” in the spring, according to an announcement from Harvard.
“This class introduces students in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies to ethnographic research methods as they pertain to exploring questions of bodies, pleasure, power, and desire,” the class description for “Queer Ethnography” states.
In the “RuPaulitics” class, students will examine “contemporary and historical drag archives, as well as critical readings on race and gender” to gain “robust tools to analyze drag, live performance, and queer and trans cultures more broadly,” according to its description.
The professor is known to lecture in his drag queen persona, the New York Post reported.
In a self-interview published by Johns Hopkins University in 2015, the professor said, “My name is LaWhore Vagistan, my preferred pronouns are ‘she’ or ‘aunty.’”
“I chose ‘LaWhore’ because my family traces its origins to Pakistan: Lahore is an important city in Pakistan, and well, I’m a bit of a w*ore,” he said.
“And Vagistan because I see the subcontinent as one, big, beautiful Vag … istan,” he said.
Khubchandani has written several LGBT-focused books including “Decolonize Drag” and “Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife,” which was published by the University of Michigan Press, according to Harvard.
The professor has a forthcoming release this month titled “Lessons in Drag: A Queer Manual for Academics, Artists, and Aunties,” published by Brandeis University Press.
“Lessons in Drag brings to life a vibrant and thought-provoking dialogue between scholar Kareem Khubchandani and his drag persona LaWhore Vagistan,” the book’s description reads.
“Together, their reflections and conversations weave a compelling tapestry of drag’s instructive power. Witty, bold, and deeply personal, Lessons in Drag is both an invitation to explore drag as a practice and a celebration of its transformative potential,” it reads.
George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley reacted to the news in a thread on X.
“This is why William F. Buckley, Jr. declared ‘I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University,’” Turley wrote.
He added that the drag queen might ironically elevate academic standards at Harvard.
“The scariest thought is that Professor LaWhore Vagistan could prove an enhancement of the academic rigor at Harvard where the average grade is now an A,” Turley wrote.
“If LaWhore gives one B, she could become the most intellectually demanding professor in Cambridge,” he wrote.
MORE: Appeals court overturns ban on student drag show at West Texas A&M
