Srimati Basu
Professor, Gender and Women's Studies

Srimati Basu is the present Chair of the Gender and Women's Studies department, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Anthropology, and a member of the Committee on Social Theory. She holds the Georgia Davis Powers Endowed Professorship (on Gender Based Violence). Srimati served as the President of the Association for Feminist Anthropology, 2021-2023. She has an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. from Ohio State University in Cultural Studies/ Anthropology/ Women's Studies, and her teaching, research and community work interests include Global Feminisms, Law, Gender-Based Violence, Social Movements, Feminist Methodologies, and Masculinities. At present, she is writing a monograph on anti-feminist men's rights groups, following a 2013-14 Fulbright Fellowship to conduct fieldwork with MRAs across Indian cities. She has recently begun a  research project on Indian women private detectives with fellowships from National Endowment for Humanities/ American Institute of Indian Studies and from Sisters in Crime.

Dr. Basu's research tracks the legacies of feminist reforms: in the monographs She Comes to Take Her Rights: Indian Women, Property and Propriety (SUNY Press, 1999) and The Trouble with Marriage: Feminists Confront Law and Violence in India (University of California Press, 2015) and the anthology Dowry and Inheritance in the series Issues in Indian Feminism (Kali for Women, 2005). The anthology Conjugality Unbound: Sexual Economies, State Regulation and the Marital Form in India (Women Unlimited, 2015, coedited with Lucinda Ramberg) continues the exploration of marriage and conjugality.

Some other pieces on property, law, marriage, violence and popular culture appear in journals including Feminist Anthropology, Signs, Feminist Studies, Frontiers, QED: A Journal of LGBTQ Worldmaking, Critical Analysis of Law, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Feminist Encounters, Law Culture and Humanities, Feminist Media Studies, Journal of Legal Pluralism, Canadian Journal of Women and Law and Economic and Political Weekly, in anthologies including The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality (2022), #Metoo and Beyond: Perspectives on a Global Movement (2022), Bombay Brokers (2021), 50th Anniversary Commemorative Volume of Contributions to Indian Sociology (2019), Men and Feminism in India (2018), Sexuality Studies: Oxford India Studies in Contemporary Society (2013), and New South Asian Feminisms: Paradoxes and Possibilities (2012), and encyclopedia entries in the Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History (2019) and the International Encyclopedia of Anthropology (2018) . Dr. Basu has also participated as subject expert in the UN Expert Group Meeting on "Family policy development: achievements and challenges, written for the Ms. Magazine blog, India Today, Times of India and Kafila," and participated in recent podcasts including Doing Sociology, That Anthro Podcast and Riddle me That: True Crime.

Links to Dr. Basu's publications, public and popular work, and descriptions of her courses appear below.

 

 

Contact Information
srimati.basu@uky.edu
214 Breckinridge Hall
859-257-4372
Education
Ph.D., Ohio State University
M.A., Purdue University
B.A. Presidency College, Calcutta University
Research Interests
  • Law
  • Social Theory
  • Masculinities Studies
  • violence
  • Marriage and Kinship
Affiliations
  • Anthropology
  • Gender and Women's Studies
  • Social Theory
  • War & Gender Work Group
  • Global Asias