About
Areas of Interest: Feminist Theories, Women’s Writing in the Global South, Critical Race Theory, Anti-Caste Philosophies, Animal Studies, Public Engagement
Shalmali Jadhav is currently a PhD Candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan, working in French, Marathi, German, and English among other languages. Her dissertation, entitled, ‘In Other Tongues: Towards a Liberatory Grammar of Feminist Knowledge,’ enriches discussions over the connections between race and caste by constructing a feminist interdisciplinary grammar that reformulates the relationship between caste, race, and gender. Through comparative close readings of 20th and 21st century literatures by Francophone black and Marathi, Hindi, and English ‘low’ caste/ dalit women like Suzanne Césaire, Paulette Nardal, Urmila Pawar, and Kumud Pawde that reconceptualize key terms like ‘intersectionality’ and ‘human’ in the particularities of the global South, her research generates a shared critical vocabulary that is useful to both scholars and activists committed to the urgent task of building global solidarities.
She graduated with a BA in English from the Savitribai Phule Pune University in 2011, following which she received a fellowship from the Institut Français to pursue a Masters in French and Comparative Literatures at the Paris-Sorbonne University. She has taught English and French as also designed syllabi and courses at various schools and universities in France, India, and the US. She currently co-organizes the RIW "Connections and Divisions: Whose University Is It Anyway," and is also working on various translation and creative writing projects.
