I am an Assistant Professor of Religion in the Religion Department at Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT, USA. I received my Ph.D. in West and South Asian Religions from Emory University (2016), my Master's of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School (2005) and a Bachelor's of Arts in Religion from Nebraska Wesleyan University (2003). I first traveled to India in 2005 to volunteer in the Women and Children's Development Unit of Seva Mandir (https://www.sevamandir.org/), an NGO in Udaipur, Rajasthan committed to rural development. I returned to study Sanskrit in the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) program in Pune, to study Hindi in the AIIS Jaipur program, and to conduct fieldwork in Udaipur.
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My book, Middle-Class Dharma: Women, Aspiration, and the Making of Contemporary Hinduism, My book, Middle-Class Dharma: Women, Aspiration, and the Making of Contemporary Hinduism (2023, Oxford University Press) examines the intersections of gender, religion, and class among upwardly mobile Hindu women in Udaipur, Rajasthan. It argues for how we can understand class as a religious identity by analyzing class experiences in terms of dharma, the moral grounding of Hindu traditions. It also suggests how we might draw on dharma, defined as "that which holds the world together," as a definition of religion more broadly and use it pedagogically to help students develop and answer analytical questions about what "counts" as religion.
My current project, "'We Live with Love for Each Other': Navigating Neighborhood Relationships between Hindu and Muslim Women in Middle-Class India" examines how Muslim women experience upward mobility in ways that are both similar to and distinct from Hindu neighbors, and how these shifts shape, and reshape, relationships between Hindu and Muslim neighbors. In particular, it asks if and how young women are meeting and supporting one another in the same ways their mothers did or if they are connecting in other ways that are rooted in their shared middle-class lifestyles.
I also have a 3-year-old daughter who shares my love of random dance parties.
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