Anjana Raghavan PhD.

My academic and professional experiences draw both from India and the UK, and these varied experiences of learning influence my research and teaching approaches.

Before I began a career in teaching, I worked as a researcher in the non-profit sector in India, mostly in the areas of gender and sexuality, and well as education among various rural, and small-town communities in Southern India.

My research is broadly in the areas of Queer-Decolonial Feminism, and knowledge-praxis creation, with a focus on race, gender, and sexuality. My enduring hope is to create radical, compassionate spaces of conversation and action, along with decolonised, non- hierarchical, and open knowledges. Feel free to write to me if you'd like any more information, or a chat!

Department of Psychology, Sociology and Politics

Social Sciences and Humanities

Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Department of Psychology, Sociology and Politics
Social Sciences and Humanities

I teach and lead on modules focussing on Social Identities and Social/Critical Theory both at Undergraduate, and Postgraduate levels. 

Currently, I teach and lead on modules including Power, Sex, and the Body; Identity, Inequality, and Intersectionality, Theorising Modernities, Understanding Human Rights: Disrupting Universalism, as well as Discourse and Linguistic Theory and Analysis which is part of the MRes programme in Sociology.

I am currently leading a departmental project which is part of a University-wide initiative to decolonise the curriculum, as well as address the attainment gap and other structural factors that specifically disadvantage students from "BAME" identified backgrounds.

I am also interested in devising courses that focus on decolonised understandings of Sociology, and Social Theory, as well as courses on Embodiment, Emotions and Desire.

Sociology

BA (Hons) Sociology

• Undergraduate Dissertations Module Leader
• Power, Sex, and the Body Module Leade

I am interested in the practices of collective flourishing amongst systemically marginalised communities across spectrums of geographies and identities.

I work on practices of love and spirituality and how people use them in the everyday politics of their lives, as well as in larger notions of community and belonging. Social and critical cultural theory are also long-standing areas of interest — specifically, the processes of decolonising theory, and decentring Euro-American epistemological foundations of social and cultural theory.

I enjoy collaborating across disciplines through my research and teaching, and much of my current work converses with literature, performance and media studies.

Selected Publications

Books

Raghavan, Anjana (2017) Towards Corporeal Cosmopolitanism: Performing Decolonial Solidarities. London: Rowman and Littlefield International.
Book Chapters and Journal Articles:
Raghavan, Anjana and Jyotirmaya Tripathy (2017) “Corporeal Cosmopolitanism and the “Right” of Desire”. In Ananta Kumar Giri (ed.) Cosmopolitanism and Beyond: Towards a Multiverse of Transformations. New Delhi: Palgrave.
Raghavan, Anjana. “Gendered Cosmopolitan Solidarities: Narratives from the IndoCaribbean” Ravenshaw Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies (RJLCS). 5 January 2015. Print.
Raghavan, Anjana (2014) “The Fragmented Minor: Tamil Identity and the Politics of Authenticity”. In Jyotirmaya Tripathy and Sudarsan Padmanabhan (eds.) Becoming Minority: How Discourses and Policies Produce Minorities in Europe and India. New Delhi: Sage.

Forthcoming

Raghavan, Anjana "Speaking without Listening: Navigating Violent Dialogues in Feminist Praxis" in Transdisciplinary Feminist Research: Innovations in Theory, Method and Practice Eds. Carol Taylor, Jasmine Ulmer, and Christina Hughes
Raghavan and Hurley, "Queering Authenticity by Embracing and Resisting the Persistent Haunting of Imposterism" in 'Imposter Syndrome' as a Public Feeling in Higher Education eds. Addison, Michelle, Maddie Breeze and Yvette Taylor

I am currently co-supervising a doctoral project in the Department of Computing. I also supervise Masters' Dissertations as part of the MRes programme.