Trisha Santanam

Pronouns: she/her 

Current Research Project: My current research project aims to disrupt the traditional ways we understand something like a “map.”  I have been trying to reconcile the idea of the sonic-- something auditory, intangible, easily embodied—with the traditional definition of cartography—something visual, constricting, definitive. I'm interested in how music, literature, and mapping are used to re-member and preserve things related to memory, as well as how these ideas can be used to warp our traditional sense of time. 

How she got involved with research: I began doing research at Duke in my sophomore year by participating in the "Rosetta Reitz Musical Archive of Care" Bass Connections Team, because I wanted to know more about archival memory and gaps. Being a part of that research team made me interested in the relationship between music and literature, so I enrolled in an Independent Study in the Fall to further explore literature's musical roots. I spent the summer after my sophomore year pursuing a personal research project on sound and mapping through the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship.