A Senior Capstone Experience by Jaya Basu ’26

Submitted to the Department of English

Advised by Dr. Rydel

Contributor Biography: Jaya S. Basu is a multi-disciplinary writer and theater artist based in Washington D. C. Their play MAHAMOHA was the recipient of several awards at the American College Theatre Festival, and was featured as a staged reading at the inaugural T4T4T Festival in Baltimore. They were the 2026 recipient of the Sophie Kerr prize, the largest undergraduate literary prize in the nation, and were a BIPOC Fellow with Trans Poetics Archive in the 2026 cohort and are a part of the 2026 cohort for the Playwright’s Unit at the People’s Theater in New York. They were the poetry editor of Collegian from 2024-2026.

Short Description: This piece examines Edmund from Shakespeare’s King Lear as a transmasculine figure. Through performance studies, queer historicism, and textual analysis, the piece interrogates what it adds to King Lear and to trans studies as a whole to interpret Edmund as trans.

Read Jaya’s SCE below: