Ila Nagar

Ila Nagar is an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University, specializing in sociolinguistics, ethnography, and South Asia Studies. Her work focuses on language, gender, sexuality, and postcolonial studies. She holds a PhD from The Ohio State University and degrees from Jawaharlal Nehru University and Aligarh Muslim University.

Her research explores marginalized communities such as Jananas (male sex workers in Lucknow), analyzing language's role in identity construction, social norms, and legal frameworks. She authored Being Janana: Language and Sexuality in Contemporary India (2019), examining the intersection of language, violence, and economic/political agency. Current projects include linguistic impacts on Indian social norms and religion-secularism entanglements in legal contexts.

Her teaching emphasizes South Asian diasporic experiences. Recent articles address transgender rights, legal recognition, and language in India's pandemic response. Research interests span ethnographic methods, queer theory, and sociolinguistic discourse analysis.