- Akhil Gupta
Akhil Gupta is a notable scholar in the field of social and
cultural anthropology . He currently is a Professor at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles .Biography
He is married to Purnima Mankekar, a fellow professor and scholar in the same field. Gupta and Mankekar have one child, Deeya Shivani.
Education
Akhil did his schooling from the prestigious St. Xavier's in Jaipur and graduated in 1974. Gupta did his undergraduate studies in Mechanical Engineering from
Western Michigan University following that with a Mechanical Engineering Masters fromMassachusetts Institute of Technology . Gupta then spent the next eight years getting a Ph.D. in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford University.Research
Gupta has done extensive work in rural North India. In his book, Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India, Gupta analyzes whether and how post-colonial theory can be applied to subaltern rural places. He attempts to understand the growth of modern India through its agricultural sector. Most of his work has taken place in the western part of the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Gupta has also tried to understand the ethnography of the state - as lived, understood and discussed in rural India.
Awards and fellowships
* Stanford Humanities Center Fellowship for 2004-2005
* Iris F. Litt Award (with Purnima Mankekar) for 2006-07 for gender research
* Woodrow Wilson fellow 1997Tenure-ship controversy
Gupta was unanimously approved for tenure in 1996 but the decision was overturned by John Shoven, Dean of Humanities and Sciences. In front of public outcry and student pressure, the decision was rescinded and Gupta was awarded tenureship within the department.
elected publications
* Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India, 1997
* Editor, The Anthropology of the State: A Reader (with Aradhana Sharma), 2006
* Editor, Caste and Outcast (with Gordon Chang and Purnima Mankekar), 2002
* Editor, Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology (with James Ferguson), 1997
* Editor, Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science (with James Ferguson), 1997External links
* [http://www.stanford.edu/dept/anthroCASA/people/faculty/gupta.html Stanford Page]
* [http://shc.stanford.edu/fellowships/0405gupta.htm Stanford Humanities Center Fellowship Profile Page for Akhil Gupta]
* [http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2006/june14/clayman-061406.html Iris F. Litt Award]
* [http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/1998/may20/anthro520.html Anthropology department splits in two over tenure ship]
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