Events

Please join the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity for the annual Allison Davis Lecture with Dr. Shailaja Paik who will be giving a talk titled: “Radical Dalit Humanism: Towards Anti-caste, Anti-race, and Anti-patriarchal Futures.” The lecture will take place on May 15, 2025 from 4 pm in Swift Hall, 3^rd floor lecture room with a reception to follow from 5:30-6:00pm in the Swift Hall common room (1025 E 58th St, Chicago, IL)

The interlocking technologies of caste, gender, sexuality, and humanity continue to shape identity, agency, and citizenship in South Asia and beyond. This talk focuses on radical Dalits’ critique of the caste system and their engagement with the transformative potential of the interlocking politics of gender, sexuality, and the human. It demonstrates how the choices that communities make about culture speak to much larger questions about inclusion, inequality, and the violence of caste in our everyday lives.

Dr. Shailaja Paikis Charles Phelps Taft Distinguished Professor of History and Associate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Sociology, and Asian Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She is MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” Fellow, 2024 . Her first book Dalit Women’s Education in Modern India: Double Discrimination(Routledge, 2014) examines the nexus between caste, class, gender, and state pedagogical practices among Dalit (“Untouchable”) women in urban India. Her second book The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity (Stanford University Press, 2022) focuses on the politics of caste, class, gender, sexuality, and popular culture in modern Maharashtra. The book won two prestigious awards: the American Historical Association’s John F. Richards prize and the Association of Asian Studies Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy prize. She is currently working on new book projects: Caste Domination and Normative Sexuality in Modern India; the Cambridge Companion to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar; and Caste, Race, and Indigeneity in South Asia and Beyond.

Persons with disabilities requiring assistance or accommodations should contact RDI 72 hours in advance of the event at: racediasporaindigeneity@uchicago.edu