The Tamil Creator Podcast (Ep.32): Amarnath Amarasingam - Hip Hop Aficionado, Assistant Professor, Researcher & Author

Podcasts

Oct 10, 2021

Business Owner

Toronto, Canada

Amarnath Amarasingam is an Assistant Professor at Queen’s University. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, and an Associate Fellow at the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. His research interests are in radicalization, terrorism, diaspora politics, post-war reconstruction, and the sociology of religion. He is the author of "Pain, Pride, and Politics: Sri Lankan Tamil Activism in Canada" (2015), and the co-editor of "Sri Lanka: The Struggle for Peace in the Aftermath of War" (2016). He has also written several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, has presented papers at over 100 national and international conferences, and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Politico, The Atlantic, and Foreign Affairs.

He joins Ara on this week’s episode of The Tamil Creator to discuss who his top 5 rappers of all time are, receiving death threats as a result of his journalistic profession, the increasing divide between people & their governments and why you should stay out of the comment section on all social platforms.

"The Tamil Creator" is a podcast started by me (Ara Ehamparam). As someone who is extremely inquisitive by nature, I created the podcast to chat with, spotlight, and learn about brilliance among creators in the Tamil community - and among creators in general from all over the world.

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Timestamps

00:19 - Ara introduces this week’s guest, Amarnath Amarasingam
02:01 - Being born during the Sri Lankan war and immigrating to Toronto shortly after
03:07 - Amarnath’s love for hip-hop; breakdancing, battle rap
08:38 - What’s more appealing: a short but legendary run, or long but relatively average one
10:40 - The violence that Scarborough fostered while Amarnath was growing up
15:15 - Getting verified on Twitter, and receiving death threats
19:07 - The lost art of people being able to disagree with one another
23:30 - How COVID contributed to political polarization
27:06 - The increasing divide between the people and the government
30:32 - How does Amarnath describe what he does to people
36:23 - Monetization in the academia world
38:21 - What is the impact of Twitter on journalistic credibility?
45:15 - Amarnath’s favourite books and podcasts
47:00 - How does one go about securing a book deal? (advances, agents, and more)
50:54 - Personal legacy: how does Amarnath want to be remembered?
52:43 - Amarnath’s biggest insecurity: being insignificant
53:38 - Inspirations from the Global Tamil community and non-Tamil community
56:49 - Advice Amarnath would give to fellow aspiring Tamil creators
1:00:40 - Creator Confessions
1:03:02 - The Wrap Up