NRI PULSE STAFF REPORT

Cambridge, MA, October 3, 2025: Harvard College’s resolution to nominate Kareem Khubchandani, an American scholar who performs in drag below the stage identify LaWhore Vagistan, as a visiting professor for the 2025–2026 tutorial 12 months has sparked a variety of reactions.

Khubchandani, who’s at present an affiliate professor at Tufts College, will train two programs — Queer Ethnography within the fall and RuPaulitics: Drag, Race, and Want within the spring — below the college’s Program in Research of Gender and Sexuality. The latter course will look at the cultural and political affect of RuPaul’s Drag Race by the lens of efficiency, race, and gender.

The appointment, supported by Harvard’s Gender and Sexuality Caucus below the F.O. Matthiessen Visiting Professorship of Gender and Sexuality, has drawn each reward and criticism. Supporters view the transfer as a daring step towards diversifying academia and embracing revolutionary pedagogies that merge efficiency and scholarship. Nonetheless, conservative commentators and a few schooling advocates have criticized the choice, calling it emblematic of what they see as greater schooling’s drift towards ideological extremism. Others have expressed discomfort with Khubchandani’s provocative drag persona and identify, “LaWhore Vagistan,” arguing that it undermines tutorial decorum and distracts from scholarship.

Khubchandani, a sociologist and efficiency research scholar, has constructed a physique of labor exploring the intersections of gender, race, diaspora, and queer id. He holds a BA in sociology and anthropology from Colgate College and an MA and PhD in efficiency research from Northwestern College. At Tufts, his analysis and instructing have centered on queer South Asian diasporic communities, nightlife cultures, and efficiency as a mode of ethnography. He’s additionally the creator of Ishtyle: Accenting Homosexual Indian Nightlife and Decolonize Drag, with a forthcoming e-book, Classes in Drag: A Queer Handbook for Lecturers, Artists, and Aunties.

As his drag alter ego LaWhore Vagistan, Khubchandani typically teaches and performs in character, mixing humor, storytelling, and significant concept. In interviews, he has defined that his drag identify pays homage to Lahore — his household’s ancestral metropolis — whereas “Vagistan” playfully reimagines South Asia as a feminist, queer homeland. By this persona, he seeks to make tutorial concepts accessible, utilizing efficiency for example complicated social theories and problem colonial and patriarchal narratives.

Advocates for Khubchandani’s appointment argue that his presence at Harvard will expose college students to new methodologies that mix lived expertise with essential scholarship. They are saying drag, as each artwork and resistance, can illuminate intersections of id, energy, and illustration. For a lot of within the LGBTQ+ tutorial neighborhood, his appointment symbolizes progress — an acknowledgment that efficiency and identity-based scholarship have reliable locations in elite establishments.

Critics, nonetheless, have questioned the educational worth of programs centered on drag tradition and actuality tv, suggesting that such choices dilute the mental rigor anticipated at Harvard. Some have voiced concern that performance-based pedagogy might prioritize spectacle over substance, whereas others view the appointment as half of a bigger cultural shift prioritizing activism over scholarship. Regardless of the backlash, Khubchandani’s supporters insist that difficult standard boundaries has lengthy been an indicator of innovation in greater schooling.

Whereas reactions stay polarized, the appointment is momentary and never a part of Harvard’s tenure-track positions, giving the college room to evaluate its influence. The actual measure of Khubchandani’s affect, observers say, will come from pupil engagement, classroom discourse, and the flexibility of his programs to foster considerate evaluation of gender, race, and id in up to date tradition.

Cowl picture credit: Cowl of the e-book, Classes in Drag: A Queer Handbook for Lecturers, Artists, and Aunties and Tufts College.