معرفی
Leela Prasad is the St. Purandar Das Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University, joining in 2024 after 25 years at Duke University. She specializes in the anthropology of ethics, South Asian religious thought, and Gandhian philosophy. Her research bridges oral narratives, colonial history, and contemporary social justice, with a focus on gender, diaspora, and prison ethics. She holds a PhD in Folklore & Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania (1998).
- Education: PhD (1998) University of Pennsylvania; MA (1991) Kansas State University; MA (1988) University of Hyderabad; BA (1986) Osmania University
Her major works include *Poetics of Conduct* (Columbia, 2007), winner of the American Academy of Religion’s Best First Book Award, and *The Audacious Raconteur* (Cornell, 2020). She co-curated the *Live Like the Banyan Tree* exhibition (1999) and directed documentaries on Indian American experiences and Gandhi-inspired prison narratives.
Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship (2023–24), two Fulbright-Nehru awards (2020, 2022), and grants from the NEH and American Philosophical Society. As President of the American Academy of Religion, she advocates for interdisciplinary religious studies.
Teaching focuses on South Asian religions, Indian cinema, and carceral ethics. Current projects include a docufiction film on Gandhi’s legacy and a collaborative biography reconstructing the life of a historically marginalized South Indian woman.
