Education
Devaleena Das holds a joint appointment between the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) at UMD and the School of Medicine at UMN. Das focuses on transnational analysis of human bodies, health, identity, technology, and ecology across the borders of cultures, disciplines and geography. Das earned a PhD (University of Calcutta) in studying spatio-temporal body politics and health in the life narratives of Aboriginal and settler women in Australia. Before joining UMD in 2018, she served as Assistant Professor at Delhi University (2012-14) and worked on her postdoctoral research project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2014-17). She was also a lecturer of Women’s studies at Northern Arizona University (2017-18).
Research and Publications
Das is a body theorist whose transdisciplinary research explores theories of human bodies, health and wellness based on real life narratives, ethnography, field research, literature, art, religious myths, and performances to initiate an ethical and respectful understanding of human bodies and contributes toward corporeal justices in healthcare system. In this regard, she bridges New Materialism with Environmentalism and Indigenous/ Aboriginal metaphysics. She investigates the dilemma of transhumanism that brings in the hope to eliminate disease, aging and miseries, but also reduces corporeality to a “data body” or information profile in clinical practice and security surveillance. In 2023, for her research, Das has received The Innovation Impact Case Award, the highest prestigious research award from the Office of the Vice President, University of Minnesota. In 2020, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services recognized Das as the “Outstanding/Extraordinary Professor and Researcher of International Recognition” for her research in health and body studies.
Das has delivered various invited lectures, plenary and keynote addresses on biopolitics and health in various countries across the globe including Australia, Canada, USA, Taiwan, UAE. Writing across transdisciplinary fields, her scholarship spans several geographical and cultural boundaries and her articles have been published in flagship peer-reviewed journals including Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy (Cambridge University Press), Feminist Studies (John Hopkins University Press), Hecate (Queensland Univ Press), Meridians: Feminism, Race and Transnationalism (Duke University Press), Feminist Formations (John Hopkins Univ Press), South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies (Taylor and Francis) among others. Das is currently the editor- in chief of Philosophy, Ethics and Humanities in Medicine and is one of the Series Editors of Palgrave Studies in Contemporary Women’s Writing.
Books
- Anatomophilia: A Transnational Approach to Liberation of the Body (Forthcoming)
- Unveiling Desire: Fallen Women in Literature, Culture, and Films of the East (Rutgers University Press, 2018)
- Claiming Space: Australian Women’s Writing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)
- Alice Walker’s The Color Purple: Critical Perspectives (Pencraft International, 2016)
- Critical Study of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (Atlantic Publishers, 2014)
Selected Recent Grants and Awards
2023 The Innovation Impact Case Award from the Office of the Vice President, University of Minnesota.
2023 HEAL: Health-Equity Advocacy & Love, Faculty Driven Proposal Award, Institute for Diversity, Equity, and Advocacy, University of Minnesota
2023 Chancellor’s Small Grant, University of Minnesota
2022 Single Semester Paid Research Leave, University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD)
2021 Award for Best Research Activity, College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, UMD
2021 Award for Best Teaching, College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, UMD
2020 Outstanding/Extraordinary Professor and Researcher of International Recognition, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
2020 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) CARES grant Award: $175,745 Project title: "Stories of Wisdom from Bodies in Separation (SWaBS): Archiving the Coronavirus Pandemic Through the Lens of Humanities." https://covidstories.d.umn.edu/
2020 Annual Faculty Award from the Executive Vice President and Provost Office for Innovative Research, University of Minnesota
2020 Visiting Scholar in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, University of Washington, Seattle
2020 Australia-India Youth Dialogue Leadership Award awarded by India-Australian governments
2019 Faculty of Education & Arts (FEDUA) Visiting Research Fellowship, Purai Global Indigenous and Diaspora Research Studies Centre, University of Newcastle, Australia
2018 Most Influential Professor Award, Northern Arizona University
Areas of Focus
Body, Sexuality & Health; Social & Structural Determinants of Health; Obstetric and Perinatal Health & Trauma; Artificial Intelligence and Health ; Ecology, Sexuality and Health Humanities; Transnationalism, Migration, and Diasporic Sexuality; Politics of knowledge formation; Research Methodologies in Gender and Sexuality Studies
Courses Taught
- Body, Sexuality & Health
- Feminist Research Methods Across Disciplines
- Theories in Gender and Sexuality Studies
- Gender Studies Senior Seminar: Body Politics and Embodiment
- Ecofeminism
- Intro to Gender and Sexuality Studies
- Transnational Feminisms
- Inscribing the Body Through Life Narratives
- As MPact Course Director for grad students in the Medical School, Das directs and teaches the course topics related to social determinants of health in 5 major areas: a) rural health, b) urban health, c) Indigenous health, d) immigrant/refugee and global health, and e) Body, Sexuality and Health.