For Applied Humanities major Nagasriya Ramisetty, the title of her poetry reading and art exhibition, “bit·ter·sweet,” reflects an essential theme in the writing: hunger.
“It’s a hunger for knowledge, a hunger for growth, a hunger to always be more. It shows up in metaphorical and literal ways,” Ramisetty said. “This project has been a really awesome overlap of my interests in medicine, poetry, and art in a creative way.”
That hunger for knowledge and growth certainly defined her ambitious and multidisciplinary project, which both unites her various academic interests and applies an artistic lens. A junior in the Honors College, she is double majoring in Applied Humanities, with a Public Health emphasis, and Physiology and Medical Sciences, and minoring in Creative Writing, Education and a thematic minor of Self, Stories, and Society.
Her Applied Humanities thesis, “bit·ter·sweet” addresses mental health stigma among Asian Americans, but humanizes the statistical data with personal stories. “I really wanted to focus on highlighting narratives in the community and I wanted that to take a creative approach. I didn’t want to sanitize it down to numbers and instead chose to focus on the people affected and involved,” she said.
Ramisetty’s project has been supported by grants from the College of Humanities and W.A. Franke Honors College, and a JustArts Fellowship from the College of Fine Arts. Her “bit·ter·sweet” poetry reading and art exhibition, free and open to the public, will take place on Friday, April 17, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Health Sciences Innovation Building, 1670 E. Drachman St.
The roots of Ramisetty’s project trace to high school, during the disruptions caused by COVID-19, when she saw a lack of structural support for students’ mental health, especially Asian American students and immigrant students. This current research serves as an extension of her advocacy for youth mental health support.
With a Franke Honors Exploratory Mini Grant, she began researching the stigma against mental health in the Asian American community and how to make resources more accessible. She continued in exploring the intersection of health and humanities as one of the inaugural Health Humanities Hub Interdisciplinary Scholars.
The artistic component of her project began coalescing in the Honors course “Living Poetry / The Poet’s Life and Work,” taught by Associate Professor of Practice Claire McLane, in conjunction with the UA Poetry Center and its Reading and Lecture Series. Students read the work of visiting poets, attended the Poetry Center readings and got to discuss those works with the poets themselves.
“This class was a pivotal moment as I was writing poetry in reflection on other people’s works for the first time. I learned more about other people's writing philosophies as well, which really shaped my identity as a poet,” she said.
A final component that helped focus the project arrived while Ramisetty was studying abroad in Greece last summer, and she began incorporating Greek mythology into her poetry, either in retelling or reimagining Greek myths in relation to her research, or poems written in conversation with Greek mythology.
“My voice as a writer has grown a significant amount. Many of the poems are written after I had the opportunity to study abroad in Greece,” she said. “That experience really grounded my poetry and gave it a more tangible form as I examined Greek mythology and the Asian diaspora.”
Ramisetty has already shown here interdisciplinary approach to the project in public, delivering a hybrid presentation of her public health research and poetry at the Health Humanities Consortium conference in Indianapolis earlier this month.
“The JustArts Fellowship and College of Humanities have truly shaped my development as an interdisciplinary scholar. I would not be who l am today without the support of every community I am a part of, and I am endlessly grateful to my peers, mentors, and loved ones,” she said.