From our Student Spotlight archives, this interview features PhD Candidate Julie Vig before her current position teaching Sikh Studies as an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto.

Tell us a little about yourself, your background, and how you became interested in the Punjabi Studies Program?

I was born in Québec city and lived and studied in Montréal for a few years before moving to Vancouver to pursue my PhD. I have always been curious and interested in the cultures, histories, and languages of South Asia and have travelled to India a number of times to visit my paternal family and explore various regions before deciding to formally commit to doing graduate school in Asian Studies.

While I was doing my M.A. degree, I studied Sanskrit at McGill University and discovered a new passion for South Asian languages. Following my M.A., I was not certain about whether or not to pursue my studies at the PhD level but my supervisor encouraged me to apply for a SSHRC doctoral scholarship, which I received, and that convinced me to apply for a PhD in Asian Studies at UBC. I chose Punjabi Studies mostly for the presence of Dr. Anne Murphy and for all the language classes and library resources available.

Could you explain to a non-expert what you are researching and why it is important?

My dissertation seeks to locate gurbilās literature in the literary, religious and political context of eighteenth and early nineteenth century North India and understand how this literature interacts with Brajbhasha literature produced in other courtly and religious contexts. Gurbilās literature refers to a collection of historical poems about the life of the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, that are written in Brajbhasha, an early modern vernacular language that came to occupy a prominent place in religious and courtly circles in 16th century North India. So far, gurbilās texts have been looked at almost exclusively within the boundaries of the Sikh and Punjabi tradition and most gurbilās texts have not been looked at in their own terms.

I believe that framing gurbilās texts in relation to Hindi or Brajbhasha textual traditions rather than constraining their study to the exclusive context of Sikh and Punjabi literature has the potential to significantly enrich our understanding of early modern North India and open up a rich world of shared political and cultural imaginaries.

Why did you chose Punjabi Studies at UBC? Was there an aspect of the program or location that was attractive to you compared to other programs in Canada or internationally?

I came to UBC and Punjabi Studies for three main reasons. First, I wanted to study under Dr. Anne Murphy’s supervision. Her expertise in the historical formation of the Sikh tradition and of the Punjabi language and literature has contributed to deepening my own understanding of the Sikh tradition — as well as strengthening my abilities to use historical methods in the analysis of Punjabi and Sikh literature produced in the premodern period. Second, UBC’s wide collections of primary sources related to South Asia and Punjab has provided first-hand resources for my research. Finally, the department of Asian Studies’ unique language training opportunities in Punjabi, Hindi, Persian, Sanskrit, and Brajbhasha and, a variety of courses and events related to South Asia, are regularly being taught and organized by supportive faculty members.

Read the full interview here