Srimati Basu is Professor of Women, Gender & Sexuality at the University of Virginia, with  academic interests including Global Feminisms, Law, Gender-Based Violence, Feminist Methodologies, and Masculinities. Her ethnographic research has tracked the legacies of feminist reforms in India, especially around marriage and inheritance: 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 anthologies Dowry and Inheritance in the series Issues in Indian Feminism (Kali for Women, 2005) and Conjugality Unbound: Sexual Economies, State Regulation and the Marital Form in India (Women Unlimited, 2015, coedited with Lucinda Ramberg). 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, Law Culture and Humanities, Feminist Media Studies, 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), 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). 

At present, Srimati is writing a monograph on anti-feminist men's rights groups, funded in part by a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Fellowship to conduct fieldwork across Indian cities. She has also 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.

Srimati was Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Anthropology, the Chair of Gender and Women's Studies, and held the Georgia Davis Powers Endowed Professorship (on Gender Based Violence) at the University of Kentucky. Srimati served as the President of the Association for Feminist Anthropology, 2021-2023, and as a member of the South Asia Council of the Asian Studies Association. She has participated as subject expert in the UN Expert Group Meeting on "Family Policy Development,” and written for popular venues including the Ms. Magazine blog, India Today, Times of India and Kafila. 

Selected Publications:

Books:

The Trouble with Marriage: Feminists Confront Law and Violence in India. University of California Press, January 2015. http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520282452 

Conjugality Unbound: Sexual Economies, State Regulation and the Marital Form in India, coedited with Lucinda Ramberg (Women Unlimited, 2014)  http://www.amazon.com/Conjugality-Unbound-Economies-Regulation-Marital/dp/818896588X

She Comes to Take Her Rights: Indian Women, Property and Propriety. Albany, NY: SUNY Press,  March 1999; New Delhi: Kali for Women, 2001. http://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-Take-Her-Rights/dp/0791440966/ref=la_B001ICBPIU_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338476627&sr=1-1

.---., ed. 2005. Issues in Indian Feminism: Dowry and Inheritance. Series: Issues in Indian Feminism; Series Editor: Rajeswari Sunder Rajan. New Delhi: Women Unlimited; London: Zed Books. http://www.amazon.com/Inheritance-Issues-Contemporary-Indian-Feminism/dp/1842776665

Selected Journal Articles

“Beyond Righteousness: Darlings, Desire and Revenge” South Asia Review (Special Issue on #metoo in South Asia) May 2023: 1-4. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02759527.2023.2211381 

“The End(s) of Marriage: Feminists, Antifeminists and Indian Law” Feminist Anthropology 1.2 (2020): 184-191  https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/fea2.12024

“The Cinematic Pleasures of Indian Men’s Rights Activists” Special Issue of Critical Analysis of Law on “Queer Legal Studies,” 6.1 (2019): 63-81. https://cal.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cal/article/view/32564

“Judges of Normality:  Mediating Marriage in the Family Courts of Kolkata, India” Signs 37.2 (2012): 469-492. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1086/661712?uid=3739680&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=56222048683

“Impossible Translation: Beyond the Legal Body in Two South Asian Family Courts” Law, Culture and Humanities 7.3 (2011): 358-375. http://lch.sagepub.com/content/7/3/359.short

“Sexual Property: Staging Rape and Marriage in Indian Law and Feminist Theory” Feminist Studies 37.1 (Spring 2011): 185-211. http://www.feministstudies.org/issues/vol-30-39/37-1.html

“V is for Veil, V is for Ventriloquism: Global Feminisms in the Vagina Monologues,”  Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, 31.1 (2010): 31-62. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.5250/fronjwomestud.31.1.31?uid=3739680&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=56222048683

“Separate and Unequal:  Muslim Women, Women’s Movements and Un-uniform Family Law in India” Special issue of International Feminist Journal of Politics on “Engaging Islam: Feminisms, Religiosities, at Self-Determinations” 10.4 (2008): 495-517. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616740802393890

Selected Book Chapters:

“Language and the Regulation of Marriage” Coauthored with Rusty Barrett, for the Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality edited by Kira Hall and Rusty Barrett, Oxford University Press, https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/42645

“In Singular and Plural Voice: #Metoo, Law and Solidarity.” Essay for the volume #MeToo and Beyond: Perspectives on a Global Movement, ed. Cristina Alcalde and Paula-Irene Villa, University Press of Kentucky. University Press of Kentucky, July 2022,https://www.amazon.com/MeToo-Beyond-Perspectives-Global-Movement/dp/0813195594

“Rajni Pandit: Detector of Truths” Essay for the volume Bombay Brokers, ed. Lisa Bjorkman. Durham, NC: Duke UP 2021 https://www.dukeupress.edu/bombay-brokers

“Gender and Law: A Retrospective” in the 50th Anniversary Commemorative Volume of Contributions to Indian Sociology, edited by Sanjay Srivastava, Yasmeen Arif and Janaki Abraham. New Delhi: Sage, 2019.https://www.amazon.in/Critical-Themes-Indian-Sociology-Srivastava/dp/9352807952/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

“Unfair Advantage?: Polygyny and Adultery in Indian Personal Law” Filing Religion: State, Hinduism, and Courts of Law,” ed. Daniela Berti, Gilles Tarrabout and Raphael Voix, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 301-324. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/filing-religion-state-hinduism-and-courts-of-law-9780199463794%3Flang%3Den%26cc%3Dkr%20

"Transformations of Dowry in Contemporary India: Marriage Practices and Feminist Discourses," in Dowry: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice, ed. Tamsin Bradley, Emma Tomalin and Mangala Subramanian. London: Zed Books, 2010. http://www.amazon.com/Dowry-Bridging-between-Theory-Practice/dp/8188965472/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338479734&sr=1-1

“Refracted Light: Teaching In an Antique Land.” in Amitav Ghosh: Critical Perspectives, ed. Brinda Bose, New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2002.http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=3963499192&searchurl=isbn%3D8185753520

“Why Would She Fight Her Family? Indian Women’s Negotiations of Discourses of Inheritance.” In Gender At Work In Economic Life, ed. Gracia Clark. Society for Economic Anthropology Monograph Series, Altamira Press, 2003. http://www.amazon.com/Gender-Economic-Society-Anthropology-Monograph/dp/0759102465

“Cutting to Size: Property and Gendered Identity In the Indian Higher Courts.” In  Signposts: Gender in Post-Independence India, ed. Rajeswari Sunder Rajan. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1999; New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2000. http://www.amazon.com/Signposts-Gender-Issues-Post-Independence-India/dp/0813529123/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338479387&sr=1-1

Selected Encyclopedia Articles:

“Family Law in Asia,” Coauthored with Yi Zhang, for the Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History ed. Howard Chiang et al., Macmillan Reference USA, 2019. https://www.cengage.com/search/productOverview.do;jsessionid=5E45EDEBE3FDEA8E3C3E05159D8A28F0?N=197+4294921852&Ntk=P_EPI&Ntt=168067965868418304515269592251794667352&Ntx=mode%2Bmatchallpartial

“Postcoloniality.” Co-Authored with Purnima Bose. Invited Entry submitted in August 2015 to the International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, section on Political and Legal Anthropology. Wiley-Blackwell: Wiley Online Library, 2018. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781118924396

Selected Awards

National Endowment for Humanities/American Institute for Indian Studies Senior Fellowship for "superior scholars/Indologists in the humanities,” 2021.

University of Kentucky Global Impact Award for Distinguished Faculty Achievements in International Research and Scholarship, 2020.

Sisters in Crime Academic Research Grant, 2019.

Fulbright-Nehru Core Research Fellowship to India, 2013-14.

American Institute for Indian Studies Senior Research Fellowship,2013-14 (declined).

Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency Award, September-October 2010.

Ms. Scholar: Ms. Magazine Writer’s Workshop Scholarship, 2009.

Selected Media:

Interview, “India’s Top Court Strikes Down Islamic Divorce” Worldview, Interviewed by Jerome McDonnell, WBEZ 91.5 Chicago August 29, 2017 https://www.wbez.org/shows/worldview/indias-top-court-strikes-down-islamic-instant-divorce/b42d0b66-d638-4aee-8134-991534a8a094

New Books Network Podcast, “The Trouble with Marriage,” with Ian Cook http://newbooksnetwork.com/srimati-basu-the-trouble-with-marriage-feminists-confront-law-and-violence-in-india-u-of-california-press-2015/

UN Expert Group Meeting on "Family policy development: achievements and challenges," 14-15 May 2015, UN Headquarters NYC and Video for International Day of the Family 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMwxBDe8SVk&feature=youtu.be and http://unsdn.org/international-day-of-families-2015-gender-equality-and-childrens-rights-in-contemporary-families/