In the latest episode of our podcast series, PhD fellow Zahra Chhapra sits down for a stimulating conversation with Professor Dr Rumya Putcha. Rumya is an Associate Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Georgia’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Together, they trace Rumya’s personal and academic journey and reflect on the development of her research interests in colonial and anti-colonial approaches to the body. The conversation explores Rumya’s experiences researching and writing her first book, The Dancer’s Voice: Performance and Womanhood in Transnational India, published in 2023 by Duke University Press, as well as the processes and progress behind her second book project, Ecologies of Yoga: Somatic Orientalism and Imaginations of India. Rumya also shares insights from her ethnographic fieldwork in dance studios in India, yoga studios in the United States, Britain, and India, as well as research conducted at the National Archives in Britain. The episode concludes on a more personal note, with Professor Dr Rumya Putcha offering advice for young researchers in the field.
You can find this episode on Soundcloud. And as always, listen, like and share.