As a life-long bibliophile who has once been an MOOC-evangelist and intends to keep one foot inside and another outside institutional academia, open access education is an invigorating prospect.
My post-adolescence cultural upbringing has been the beneficiary of p2p movement and my recent stint in academics (finished two Masters, preparing for MPhil in Visual Studies) have been deeply enriched by recommendation-based online libraries and kindness of digitizing strangers.
Although I am aware that the ongoing Open Access Academia movement is not perfect (nothing is), I want to be an active contributor and negotiator rather than a passive bystander and naysayer. Instead of being a mere resource-leech and network-rat, I want to contribute regularly and systematically in a way which is also commensurate with my free time and academic abilities.
I am currently researching and writing my first draft of MPhil thesis, so can only dedicate a few hours per week in 2018. Before coming back to academics in Visual Studies, I have worked for a decade in the Advertising and Marketing Communications Industry (ideating / writing / editing / co-ordinating), so my text-editing and online interpersonal communication skills are not too bad and I am looking forward to making them better.
As far as my current academic interests are concerned, they are aesthetics, visuality, visual culture, religious culture, secularism and Indian visual and religious history. Looking forward to responses and opportunities to collaborate.
As I write this, I am also trawling the forums for a thread I can contribute to.
