Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
Center for Contemporary South Asia

Naisargi Dave ─ On Context and Contradiction: The Politics of Humans and Animals in Contemporary India

Friday, April 21, 2017

3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Kim Koo Library, Watson Institute 

Naisargi Dave is an Assoiciate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto.

Professor Dave’s research concerns emergent forms of politics and relationality in contemporary urban India. Her book, Queer Activism in India: A Story in the Anthropology of Ethics (Duke 2012) explores the relationship among queer politics, activism, and affect. It was awarded the Association for Queer Anthropology’s Ruth Benedict Prize for outstanding monograph in 2013. Her second book project, The Social Skin: Humans and Animals in India engages critically with humanism and the privileging of reason to consider myriad facets of working with and for urban and working animals in India. This project has been funded by a SSRHC Standard Research Grant and a fellowship from the Jackman Humanities Institute. Professor Dave teaches courses on animality and posthumanism, affect, ethics, anthropological theory, activism, gender and sexuality, and the anthropology of South Asia.

South Asia Seminar