Engendering Caste, Sexualizing Race

a conversation with Sumit Baudh, Sameena Dalwai, & Thenmozhi Soundararajan

To register for this online event, click here.

This webinar marks the inaugural session of a new webinar series, Theory and Practice: Transnational Conversations on Gender and Sexuality: a collaboration between CSGS and the Centre for Studies of Gender and Sexuality at Ashoka University (New Delhi).  The series is aimed at TAP-ping into critical and creative energies from around the world, to expand the intellectual and geographical ambit of our conversations around gender and sexuality in relation to politics, rhetoric, and history. The first webinar will focus on questions around Engendering Caste, Sexualizing Race.  

Race and caste have been described both as being similar and dissimilar. What the two structures share are long histories of violence that have also been gendered and sexualised. Simultaneously effeminized and hyper-masculinized, both caste and race have made evident the illogics of their governing structures. This session will address the broad and complex intersections among caste, race, gender, and sex as these concepts continue to inform the cultures and politics of our time.

Sumit Baudh is Associate Professor and Executive Director at the Centre on Public Law and Jurisprudence at Jindal Global University, India. His research interests include caste, gender, sexuality, and social justice. Dr. Baudh has acted as a legal advisor to organisations in various countries working on sexuality and human rights. He is also an artist and has developed some of his research into art projects which have been exhibited in the United States and in India.

Sameena Dalwai is Professor and Assistant Director at the Centre for Women, Law and Social Change at Jindal Global University, India. Her work focuses on sexuality, caste and labour, particularly in the context of dance bars in Mumbai, a site that emerged as a locus of power, capital and legal contestations in the early 2000s. Apart from teaching and research, Professor Dalwai also advises several human rights organizations and NGOs in Maharashtra.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan is an activist, musician and media artist. She is the Executive Director of Equality Labs, a political collective of South Asians in the United States which addresses structural injustices through research, art and political organization. Soundararajan has also been associated with media justice collectives, and with the creation of Dalit History Month, a participatory research project that records Dalit histories through stories from within the community.

Organized by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality and the Centre for Studies of Gender & Sexuality at Ashoka University, New Delhi. Co-sponsored by the NYU Asian/Pacific/American Institute and South Asia at NYU.

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This event is free and will be accessed via Zoom.

Register for this event here.

Please contact CSGS at csgs@nyu.edu for more information.