I’m a researcher at the Australian National University, where I write about India and its diaspora. I use critical and creative approaches from literary, gender and cultural studies to shed light on ethical and political questions we face in a globalising world.
My Work
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Flexible India: Yoga's Political and Cultural Tensions
My work investigates a new symbol of flexible Indianness: yoga. In my book Flexible India: Yoga’s Cultural and Political Tensions (Columbia University Press, 2024), I dive into material as different as American murder mysteries, India’s tax code, and family history to show the significance of yoga’s imaginative power.
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Fiction Across Borders
In my book Fiction Across Borders (Columbia University Press, 2010) and related articles, I take on a key ethical question of our globalising era. How might we represent the lives of “others” without stereotyping, appropriating, or otherwise doing damage?
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Feminist Voices
From novels to cookbooks to microfinance websites, I investigate how globalization creates new conditions — some positive, some less so — for feminist perspectives.
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Engaged Humanities
Bringing scholarly ideas to life is a key goal of my research and teaching. I’m the cofounder of Samyama Lab, a partnership with Yoga Mandir: An Iyengar Institute, that promotes yoga as a cosmopolitan way of investigating our globalising world. In the university, my students use the methods and values of gender and cultural studies to design smartphone apps, make vodcasts, and experiment with new forms of 21st-century knowledge.