About
Areas of Interest: Women’s Writing in the Global South, Critical Race Theory, Anti-Caste Philosophies, Animal Studies, Public Engagement, Visual and Digital Studies, Feminist Theory, Translation
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, "Imagined Intimacies: Black and Dalit Women Writing from the Global South" 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, 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 Literature 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 has worked in the Curriculum Collection at the University of Michigan Museum of Art as a Curatorial Assistant and as doctoral intern in the Public Experience and Learning Department. She has also worked with Michigan Humanities on the Great Michigan Reads project, in collaboration with author Angeline Boulley.
