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 |
Theatre, performance and film histories, book history, gender, and dance studies. |
|
Rachel Dwyer |
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 |