Speaker Biographies

Bandana Purkayastha is Professor of Sociology & Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut (UCONN). She has served as the President, Sociologists for Women in Society (2013-2014), and as the American Sociological Association’s national representative to the International Sociological Association (2014-2018). The recipient of American Sociological Association Asia and Asian American section’s 2016 Contribution to the Field (career) award, Professor Purkayastha’s research interests focus on intersectionality, human rights, migration, violence & peace. She has published over fifty peer-reviewed articles, books, and chapters on these subjects. Her research lies on the intersections of gender/racism/class/age; transnationalism; violence and peace; and human rights. Professor Purkayastha’s excellence teaching and mentoring has been recognized through multiple awards. Her editorial activities include work in Gender & Society, Journal of South Asian Diaspora, and Frontpage Publications’ Human Rights series.

Professor Maitrayee Chaudhuri is a former professor from the Centre for the Study of Social Systems (CSSS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Her research interests have been on the making of the public discourse in modern India. Her early work focused on nationalism, colonialism, and feminism in India. Since the early 1990s, she has been looking at the changing nature of public discourse in the context of both neoliberalism and the rise of majoritarianism.

Professor Mokkil is a professor at the Women’s Study Centre at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. Dr. Mokkil works on gender, sexuality and the cultural practices in India and has conducted research on the politics of sexuality in Kerala. Her recent book, ‘Unruly Figures: Queerness, Sex Work and the Politics of Sexuality in Kerala’, tracks the cultural practices through which sexual figures--particularly the sex worker and the lesbian--are produced in the public imagination. Her analysis includes representations of the prostitute figure in popular media, trajectories of queerness in Malayalam films, public discourse on lesbian sexuality, the autobiographical project of sex worker and activist Nalini Jameela, and the memorialization of murdered transgender activist Sweet Maria, showing how various marginalized figures stage their own fractured journeys of resistance in the post-1990s context of globalization. She recently joined CeMIS as an Alexander von Humboldt visiting researcher in March 2022.