Veena Das is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University and a founding member of the Institute of Socio-Economic Research on Development and Democracy in India.
Her overarching interest has been, in her own words, “to understand the working of long time cultural logics in contemporary events as well as moments of rupture and recovery.” She has published widely on feminist movements, gender studies, sectarian violence, medical anthropology, and post-colonial and post-structural theory, including such authored and edited volumes as Structure and Cognition: Aspects of Hindu Caste and Ritual; Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia; Social Suffering; Violence and Subjectivity; Remaking a World; and Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary.
She has a master’s and PhD in sociology from the Delhi School of Economics at the University of Delhi and has taught there, as well as at the New School in New York.
She received the Anders Retzius Gold Medal from the Swedish Society of Anthropology and Geography in 1995, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Chicago in 2000. She is also a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
