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The term “intersectionality” — an inherently ambiguous label for critical theory that understands social categorizations like race, class and gender to be interconnected and interlocked, rather than separate phenomena — was coined by critical race scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989, a year before Parameswaran came to the United States for grad school. It was a part of her entrance into the academic world and has been a key part of her critical thinking since.

It’s a difficult concept to label because it is so many things. Parameswaran called it a prism.

It can also be a litmus test for social movements and their potential blind spots, she said. The “Slut Walk” movement foregrounded reclamation of white female sexuality, but did little to combat the stigmatization of black female sexuality. The “Occupy” movement fought against socioeconomic inequality but failed to consider the implications of an occupation movement on lands occupied by a settler-colonist state. The Black Lives Matter movement foregrounded violence against Black men, but was less apt at shedding light on violence against black women.

Parameswaran also spoke to the way intersectionality and its use in critical theories has evolved since its birth. What was initially born to address the ineptitudes of ‘60s- and ‘70s-era progressive movements has come to encompass more than just gender and race. One critical expansion, she said, is the addition of class-conscious thinking to intersectionality.

“Race and racism are not simply biproducts of capitalism, or secondary additions, but integral to the functions of capitalism itself,” she said.

In thinking about the current global health crisis, intersectional thinking welcomes critical understandings of the way the COVID-19 epidemic impacts marginalized groups.

Specifically, Parameswaran prompted listeners to consider how the outbreak might affect the homeless elderly — a group that in some regions of the country might be dominated by people of color. Or how it might impact workers in the health and service industries — predominantly women and women of color, respectively. Or that it might more severely hurt incarcerated people. Or the potential it has to reshape the dynamics of families in isolation across gender and age power dynamics.

“There’s a lot of interesting things here for me and the kind of things I’ve researched,” he said.

Specifically, he’s interested in how people have turned to social media for a sense of togetherness as social distancing practices keep them isolated and indoors.

The virus has prompted a sort of renewal for the purpose of social media, he said. What had become largely a mode of distraction and time-wasting has once again become a place for connection.

Doctoral student Jared Meisinger’s research focuses on news framing, or the way different modes of journalistic storytelling can be categorized as thematic or episodic based on what they focus on and how. Episodic framings, which focus on specific people or incidents, tend to lead audiences to blame people or circumstances, while thematic framings focus on big-picture scenarios and lead readers to understand them as societal problems rather than individual failings.

Meisinger said there’s plenty of room to delve into the use of thematic and episodic framings in COVID-19 coverage.

Master’s student Lexi Newman researches the impact of traumatic news coverage on children, specifically their fear of school shootings. Children can show stress and PTSD symptoms from watching news coverage of traumatic incidents like disaster and violence.

“When we have something like a pandemic, or just something really bad in the country, news coverage like that tends to increase,” she said.

Doctoral student Logan Brown’s research looks at mid-century artifacts of people’s perceptions of technology as the creation of educational films and other tech-oriented products created a sort of manufactured consent for the computerization of the United States.

Now, he’s wondering if the social isolation and accompanying reliance on technology prompted by the novel coronavirus will yield another evolution in the ever-shifting relationship we have with technology.