Nitya Vasudevan
Areas of Interest & Expertise
- Publicness and Gender
- Women’s Labour
- Sexual Politics
- Literature and Politics
- Science Fiction
- South Indian Cinema
- Culture and Globalisation
- Digital Intimacy
- Memory Work
- Education
- Social Justice
Biography
Nitya joined the University in January 2020. Before this, she worked for five years as faculty at the Centre for Wellness and Justice, Baduku Community College (an initiative of Samvada NGO in Bengaluru). At Samvada, she was also the convener of the Kanaja Youth Research Cell.
She completed her PhD in Cultural Studies at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bengaluru (affiliated with Manipal University). Her thesis, titled ‘Turning Towards the Bodily Subject: Theorising the Field of Visibility in Contemporary India’ examined the ways in which women’s bodies appear, are exposed, perform, are shamed or rendered spectacle in the public domain.
She is currently researching digital intimacy in the lives of young Asian women, in collaboration with scholars from Bengaluru, Hong Kong, Singapore and China.
She has taught courses in the fields of Literary and Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Research Methodology, and Wellness and Justice. Her publications revolve around culture, gender, globalisation, cinema, sexuality, caste, censorship, education and pedagogy.
She is a co-director of the Bangalore Queer Film Festival since 2010.
Courses
The Body in Society
The course aims to teach students how reading, writing, language and interpretation can extend beyond the analysis of literary texts to a range of texts and practices in everyday life.
Bangalore: Language, Media, Culture
Exploring the texts that make up the city of Bangalore.
Contemporary India Through Literary and Cultural Texts
Texts ranging from the years before and after Independence to the India of the 21st century.
Publications
Chapters in edited books
- Vasudevan, N. (2019). Navel Gazing: Of Loving Women, Hating Men and Fighting Back in Our Time. In N.Banerjea, K. Browne, E. Ferreira, M. Olasik & J. Podmore (Eds.), (Re)Claiming Lesbian Feminisms: Transnational Dialogues with Contemporary Heteropatriarchies (pp. 202 — 229). Zed Books. 10.5040/9781350221109.ch-011
- Ratnam, A., & Vasudevan, N. (2018). The Personal and Pedagogical in the 21st Century: Experiments in Learning About Marriage. In J. Sefton-Green & O. Ershad (Eds.), Learning Beyond the School: International Perspectives on The Schooled Society (pp. 209 — 226). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315110318
- Vasudevan, N. (2013). ‘Public Women’ and the ‘Obscene’ Body: An Exploration of Abolition Debates in India. In S. Wieringa and H. Sivori (Eds.), The Sexual History of the Global South: Sexual Politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America (pp.168 — 186). Zed Books. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350223523.ch-009
- Malhotra, N. A., & Vasudevan, N. (2011). The State of Desire and Other Flights of Fantasy: Sexuality, Pornography, Technology. In A. Narrain & A. Gupta (Eds.), Law like Love: Queer Perspectives on Law (pp. 395 — 429). Yoda Press.
Journal Articles
- Vasudevan, N. (2017). Between ooru, area and pettai: The terms of the local in Tamil cinema of the 21st Century. Positions: Asia Critique, 25(1), 145 — 172. https://doi.org/10.1215/10679847 – 3710377
- Niranjana, T., & Vasudevan, N. (2016). Reorganisation of desire: Cultural lives of young women in globalising India. Economic and Political Weekly, 51(14), 70 –78. https://www.epw.in/system/files/pdf/2016_51/14/Reorganisation_of_Desire_0.pdf
- Vasudevan, N. (2015). Navigating a field of opposition: A rereading of debates on ‘caste and gender’. Economic and Political Weekly, 1(17), 48 — 55. https://www.epw.in/system/files/pdf/2015_50/17/Navigating_a_Field_of_Opposition.pdf
- Vasudevan, N. (2014). Inflamed passions and prurient interests: Censorship and the staging of the obscene body-in-the-text. Pragmata: Journal of Human Sciences, 2(2).
Other Writings
- Vasudevan, N., & Manayath, N. (2011). Queer Histories of the Internet. Unpublished monograph for Histories of the Internet (Researchers at Work) project, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.
- Tarangini, S. & Vasudevan, N. (2020, October 16). Bearing witness to the COVID-19 lockdown: Migrant workers in proof regimes. The India Forum. https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/bearing— witness— covid— 19— lockdown
- Vasudevan, N. (2014, July 3). When the light of our century may blind us. Sexuality Policy Watch Newsletter N14. https://sxpolitics.org/article— newsletter— n— 14— nitya— vasudevan/9400
- Vasudevan, N. (2008).Recasting the desire to desire: Engaging with“impossible subjects” in the domain of sexuality politics. Swakanthey (in her own voice).
- Vasudevan, N. (2010−2012). TimeOut Bengaluru. Gay & Lesbian column.