Doctoral Fellow in Research Area 5: "Building Digital Communities"

April–September 2025

From Canon to Commons: Global Community Building through Narratives and Shared Sickness in the Digital Realm

This project examines how online narratives challenge traditional literary canons by recognising personal accounts as valuable forms of literature. While autobiographical narratives by non-canonical writers were historically excluded from the canon, the rise of digital platforms has enabled diverse stories to be shared and archived, fostering a more inclusive literary history.

Focusing on digital spaces such as Facebook groups, blogs and Reddit communities, the project explores how individuals with illnesses create and sustain online communities. These digital commons function as repositories of shared experiences, practical knowledge and emotional support, forming affective communities that transcend geographic and temporal boundaries. Even after death, the narratives of terminally ill individuals remain active through community engagement, demonstrating the enduring impact of these digital records.

The project employs netnography to analyse these narratives, emphasising their role in shaping literary discourse and redefining notions of authorship and readership. Additionally, it considers the implications of digital tools and computational methods in studying literature, highlighting both their potential and limitations.

By legitimising personal illness narratives as part of literary studies, the project seeks to challenge the dominance of the Western literary canon. It argues that digital platforms not only transform how literature is created and circulated but they also enable radical solidarities across cultures and time periods.

Ananya Punyatoya is a PhD candidate at the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her research focuses on illness narratives, exploring their role in literary studies and building digital communities. She is also interested in internet cultures and popular culture, with a deep fascination for how digital spaces enable new forms of solidarity and community-building. She is currently writing her PhD thesis.