Simmons College

Jyoti Puri writes and teaches in the areas of sexualities, states, nationalisms, and transnational feminist critiques. Her book, Woman, Body, Desire in Post-colonial India: Narratives of Gender and Sexuality (Routledge 1999), addresses how constructs of gender and sexuality are shaped across national and transnational contexts. A subsequent book, Encountering Nationalism, (Blackwell Publishers 2004), examines questions of nationalism and the state from a feminist sociological perspective. She co-edited a special issue on transnational feminist sociology for the journal Gender & Society (April 2005). A number of related articles and chapters are published in feminist journals and edited volumes on sexuality and gender.

Jyoti Puri is the recipient of fellowships and grants, including a Rockefeller Research Fellowship and a Fulbright Senior Research award.  She is currently working on a book manuscript, Sexuality/State:  Decriminalizing Homosexuality in India. This book documents the struggle to decriminalize homosexuality in India by changing the "unnatural sex law," namely Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. It analyzes the significance of sexuality for state governance of the broader population, or biopolitical governmentality. Another collaborative book project, Hometown: Space and Affiliation in the Current Century, is also underway.

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