I teach and write at the intersections of psychoanalytic critique, feminist and queer theory, postcolonial studies, and ethnic American literature. I am interested in shared histories of racialization, governance and regulation of gender/sexuality, and politics of resistance --  from the late 19th century decline of British colonial rule in the Indian Ocean through to the Pacific and the rise of American global power in the 20th century.

My first book, An Empire of Touch: Women's Political Labor & The Fabrication of East Bengal (Columbia University Press, 2019) was awarded the Harry Levin Prize for outstanding first book by the American Comparative Literature Association in 2020 and the Helen Tartar First Book Subvention Prize (2017).  A South Asia imprint by Penguin Random House (2019) is available here.

I am currently at work on two new projects: Fascination: America's "Hindu" Cults,  considers the allure and scandal of so-called “Hindu cults” in America. From the Transcendentalists to the countercultural 1960s, spiritual practices and texts coded as Indic or Vedic have captivated an American imagination.  Fascination enquires into the figures, ideas, and social forms seemingly imported from India, but in fact homegrown, that so enthrall an America public and that continue to shape its racial and spiritual self-conception. Bengal to Berkeley looks at conspiracy as a legal, philosophical, and political concept to understand the rise of the surveillance of racial and sexual subjects in WWI America. 

In addition to being affiliated faculty in the Program on Critical Theory and in the Departments of Gender and Women's Studies and South and Southeast Studies, I serve on the editorial boards of Representations and the Critical South book series.  

I earned my BA in International Relations (Development Economics) and English from Mount Holyoke College and my PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania.