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 |
| Rachel Dwyer Professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema |
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 |
| 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 |