SOAS South Asia Institute

India Expertise at the SOAS

Name/Title	Area of Expertise
Alessandra Mezzadri Senior Lecturer in Development Studies	Neoliberalism; globalisation; industrial restructuring; labour and political economy of India
Almut Hintze Professor of Zoroastrianism	Zoroastrianism, Avestan and Pahlavi
Amina Yaqin Senior Lecturer in Urdu and Postcolonial Studies	Urdu language and literature; post colonial literature and theory; gender studies
Avinash Paliwal Lecturer in Diplomacy and Public Policy	India in Afghanistan from the Soviet Invastion to the US Withdrawal, India's foreign policymaking towards Myanmar since Independence (1947).
Crispin Branfoot Reader in the History of South Asian Art & Archaeology	Hindu, Buddhist and Jain Architecture, Sculpture and Painting; Pilgrimage and Sacred Geography, Archaeology and Material Religion; South India
David Mosse Professor of Social Anthropology	Caste, religion, ritual, vernacular Christianity, environmental history, common property resources, indigenous irrigation, participatory rural development, aid agencies, anthropology of development: India, especially Tamil Nadu, adivasi (tribal) Western India
Edward Simpson Professor of Social Anthropology	Islam in South Asia; politics, ethnography, and society of Gujarat; social theory and the western Indian Ocean; the ethnography of reconstruction after catastrophic natural disasters
Eleanor Newbigin Senior Lecturer in the History of Modern South Asia	History of modern South Asia, particularly the transition to independence; gender, family and law in colonial and post-colonial India
Fiona Buckee Temporary Lecturer in South Asian Art	Origination, evolution and transformation of North Indian temple architecture from 500 – 1100
Francesca Orsini Professor of Hindi and South Asian Literature	Hindi literature; North Indian literary cultures; Hindi; Urdu
Gurharpal Singh Professor of Sikh and Punjab Studies	Sikh studies, Religious violence, Religions and development, Multiculturalism with special reference to the management of religious diversity
Heather Elgood Course Director of the Diploma in Asian Art	Persian, Sultanate and Mughal manuscript painting; Hindu sculpture and the ritual arts of India
James Mallinson Senior Lecturer in Sanskrit and Classical Indian Studies	Sanskrit, Poetry and Ethnography of Yoga
Jens Lerche Reader in Agrarian and Labour studies	South Asia; agrarian political economy; rural labour relations; governance and development
Kanika Sharma Senior Status LLB Tutor	Relation between law and culture in colonial and post-colonial contexts, age of consent debates in India from the late nineteenth century onward.
Martin W Lau Professor of South Asian Law	Laws of South Asia; comparative environmental law, Islamic law
Mayur Suresh NALSAR Coordinator	Anti-terror laws (particularly of South Asia); law and anthropology; legal theory (particularly on theories of emergency legality); sexuality and gender identity in South Asia
Naresh Sharma Senior Lector in Urdu and Hindi	Hindi and Urdu Language
Navtej Purewal Reader in Political Sociology and Development Studies	Feminist scholarship and gender in South Asia, including female feticide and routes and barriers to girls’ education; sociology of religion focusing specifically on the region of Punjab across India and Pakistan
Paolo Novak Lecturer in Development Studies	Trans-nationality with particular reference to migration; refugee regime; borders and NGOs
Peter Mollinga Professor of Development Studies	South Asia, Central Asia; comparative political sociology of water resources and development; technology and agrarian change; boundary work in natural resources management; interdisciplinary social theory
Peter Flügel Reader in the Study of Religions	Religion and society in South Asia, Jainism, Jains, minority religions, religion and law, South Asian Diaspora
Peter Robb Emeritus Professor	The history of modern South Asia; early Calcutta, c. 1780-1830; Indian agrarian history, especially Bihar and Eastern India
Philippe Cullet Chair, Centre of Law, Environment and Development	International law, environmental law; intellectual property; human rights; natural resources
Dr Priyanka Basu Research Associate	Theatre, performance and film histories, book history, gender, and dance studies.
Rachel Dwyer Professorial Research Associate	Hindi Cinema; Indian popular culture; Indian film; Hinduism; new middle classes; Mumbai/Bombay; Gujarati language and literature; Gujarati diaspora especially in the UK and East Africa; comparative Indian literature
Rahul Rao Senior Lecturer in Politics	International normative theory (with a focus on cosmopolitanism); postcolonial theory; empire globalisation; social movements; international law; human rights (particularly queer rights)
Rakesh Nautiyal Senior Lector in Hindi	Hindi language
Richard Axelby Research Associate	India, especially the western Himalayan environmental history, natural resources management, nomadic pastoralism and agrarian change
Richard Widdess Professor of Musicology	North Indian art-music; history of music in South Asia; Newar music; music theory and analysis
Rochana Bajpai PhD Research Methods Seminar Co-Convenor	Contemporary political theory, particularly multiculturalism; methodology, particularly political ideologies; modern Indian politics
Roy Fischel Lecturer in the History of South Asia	History of precolonial South Asia, in particular Muslim polities and societies; the Deccan, 1300-1700; South Asia and the early modern Muslim world
Dr Sanjukta Ghosh Research Associate	Modern South Asia from the nineteenth century to the present focus on the Bengal Presidency, modern West Bengal and Bangladesh. Agrarian history, decolonisation and international development, urbanisation and cultural heritage practices, Bengali literature, oral tradition, illustrations and art.
Sarah Stewart Lecturer in Zoroastrianism	Lecturer in Zoroastrianism, with particular reference to the living tradition in Iran and India.
Satoshi Miyamura Senior Lecturer	Development economics, Labour economics, Institutional economics, Labour-management bargaining;
Shabnum Tejani Senior Lecturer in the History of Modern South Asia	19th and 20th century social and intellectual history, particularly of western India; histories of nationalism, communalism and secularism
Sian Hawthorne	Religion and Gender, Postcolonial theory (with particular reference to South Asia) and the Study of Religions, Method and Theory in the Study of Religions
Simona Vittorini Senior Teaching Fellow	Nationalism; South Asian politics; modern Indian politics
Somnath Batabyal Lecturer in Media in Development and International Journalisms	South Asia with a focus on India; transnational news spheres with a special focus on India; Development discourses in India and its articulation in mainstream and alternate news forums; environmental politics
Stephen P Hughes Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology	Popular cinema, media theory, historical anthropology and visual anthropology; India, especially the Tamil-speaking south, and Sri Lanka
Subir Sinha Senior Lecturer in Institutions and Development	South Asia: institutions of development, NGOs, social movements; the environment, common property institutions and resource use
Vanja Hamzić Senior Lecturer in Legal History and Legal Anthropology	Islamic law and philosophy; family law; tort; human rights; global law and governance; social and legal theory; legal history; legal anthropology; post colonial theory; law and society in South Asia (esp. Pakistan), South East Asia (esp. Indonesia) and the Middle East; theory of art; critical approaches to law and personhood