The South Asian Studies Program and Department of Gender, Women's & Sexuality Studies invite you to "Bodily Encounters: Idioms of Political Expressions in India," a talk by Dr. Navaneetha Mokkil, that will take place virtually from 12:00 - 1:15 p.m. (CDT) on Monday, March 28. 

This presentation focuses on shifting modalities of public protests and cultural practices in contemporary India that make us meet with the body differently. Professor Navaneetha Mokkil will explore the links between the staging of protests and the unfolding of cultural forms, such as cinema, photography, and visual art, since they all create scenographies that disrupt customary boundaries. Mokkil will unpack how and why contemporary protests and cultural practices insist on the materiality of the body when proliferating media practices render bodies mobile, virtual, and duplicable.

Dr. Navaneetha Mokkil teaches at the Center for Women’s Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her areas of research and teaching include feminist theory and methodology, print and visual culture, and public formations of sexuality. She is the author of Unruly Figures: Queerness, Sex Work and the Politics of Sexuality in Kerala (2019) and the co-editor of Thinking Women: A Feminist Reader (2019). Her articles on the non-linear imaginations of sexuality have appeared in the journals Studies in European Cinema, Inter Asia Cultural Studies, South Asian Popular Culture, and BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies.

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events.  If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Sarolta Petersen in advance at sarolta-petersen@uiowa.edu or 319-335-3862.