October 7, 2025
South Asia Migrations, Archaeologies of Death
10.07.2025| 5 -6:30 PM | 10 Stephens Hall (ISAS Conference Room)
with Jyoti Puri, Professor of Sociology, Boston University
Jyoti Puri is a feminist sociologist whose research and teaching are enriched by the intersections of sociology, sexuality and queer studies, critical death studies, and postcolonial, decolonial, and anticolonial theories. Her work primarily focuses on the structural and institutional forms of regulation from the perspectives of marginalized subjects. Through her books and numerous essays, she explores how states and nations govern bodies, genders, sexualities, and death; examines the transnational aspects of governance shaped by colonial histories and postcolonial legacies; and strives to decenter Eurocentric theory and perspectives.
Puri’s scholarly contributions include Sexual States: Governance and the Struggle Against the Antisodomy Law in India’s Present, published by Duke University Press in 2016, which received the Distinguished Book Award from the Sociology of Sexualities Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA) in 2018. Her earlier works include Woman, Body, Desire in Post-colonial India (Routledge, 1999) and Encountering Nationalism (Blackwell Publishers, 2004). Additionally, she co-edited a special issue on “Feminist Mournings” with Dr. Kimberly Juanita Brown for Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism (November 2022). Puri has published numerous articles and book chapters and has co-edited special issues on gender, sexuality, state, and nation for Gender & Society (April 2005) and on sexuality and the state for Rethinking Marxism (October 2012).
Her current research investigates how South Asian migrants, particularly Sikhs and Muslims, manage death in the U.S. and Canada, a project for which she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2022-2023. She is also working on a co-edited volume on anticolonial, decolonial, and postcolonial sociologies and a special issue on the sociology of death and mourning.
Puri’s scholarly contributions include Sexual States: Governance and the Struggle Against the Antisodomy Law in India’s Present, published by Duke University Press in 2016, which received the Distinguished Book Award from the Sociology of Sexualities Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA) in 2018. Her earlier works include Woman, Body, Desire in Post-colonial India (Routledge, 1999) and Encountering Nationalism (Blackwell Publishers, 2004). Additionally, she co-edited a special issue on “Feminist Mournings” with Dr. Kimberly Juanita Brown for Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism (November 2022). Puri has published numerous articles and book chapters and has co-edited special issues on gender, sexuality, state, and nation for Gender & Society (April 2005) and on sexuality and the state for Rethinking Marxism (October 2012).
Her current research investigates how South Asian migrants, particularly Sikhs and Muslims, manage death in the U.S. and Canada, a project for which she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2022-2023. She is also working on a co-edited volume on anticolonial, decolonial, and postcolonial sociologies and a special issue on the sociology of death and mourning.
Event hosted by CRG’s Political Conflict, Gender and People’s Rights Initiative and the Institute for South Asia Studies.