Jisha Menon

Bio

Jisha Menon teaches courses at the intersection of postcolonial theory and performance studies. She received her M.A. in English Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and her Ph.D in Drama from Stanford University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of religion and secularity, gender and nationalism, cosmopolitanism and globalization. She has published essays on the Indian partition, diasporic feminist theatre, political violence in South Asia, transnational queer theory, and neoliberal urbanism. Her book, Performance of Nationalism: India, Pakistan and the Memory of Partition (Cambridge UP, 2013), considers the affective and performative dimensions of nation-making. The book recuperates the idea of "mimesis" to think about political history and the crisis of its aesthetic representation, while also paying attention to the mimetic relationality that undergirds the encounter between India and Pakistan. She is also at work on a second project, Pedestrian Acts: Performing the City in Neoliberal India, which considers new narrations of selfhood that are produced at the intersection of neoliberal state, global market and consumer fantasy. She is co-editor, with Patrick Anderson, of a volume of essays, Violence Performed: Local Roots and Global Routes of Conflict (Palgrave-Macmillan Press, 2009) and with Milija Gluhovic, of Performing the Secular: Religion, Representation, and Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.)

Academic Appointments

• Associate Professor, Theater and Performance Studies

Administrative Appointments

• Director, Centre for South Asia, Stanford Global Studies (2017 - Present)
• Interim Director, Stanford Arts Institute (2019 - 2020)
• Core Committee, Feminist, Gender, Sexuality Studies (2015 - Present)
• Advisory Board, Introductory Seminars (2016 - 2019)
• Academic Council Committee Member, Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid (2015 - 2018)
• Advisory Committee, Centre for South Asia (2015 - 2017)
• Member, Breadth Governance Board (2015 - 2017)
• Director of Undergraduate Studies, Theatre and Performance Studies (2014 - 2016)
• Visiting Faculty, MAIPR Program, University of Warwick (2013 - 2013)
• Committee in Charge, member, Modern Thought and Literature (2011 - 2015)
• Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre and Performance Studies Stanford University (2009 - 2015)
• Assistant Professor, Department of English University of British Columbia (2004 - 2008)

Honors & Awards

• Faculty Fellow, Feminist, Gender, Sexuality Studies (2017)
• Stanford Initiative for Religious and Ethnic Understanding and Coexistence, Stanford (2015)
• artsCatalyst Grant, Stanford University (2015)
• Urban Beyond Measure, Stanford Global Studies (2013)
• Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford University (2011)
• Annenberg Faculty Fellow, Stanford University (2010)
• Standard Research Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2007 - 2010)
• Whiting Fellowship, Stanford University (2003-2004)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

• Member, International Federation for Theatre Research
• Member, Performance Studies International
• Member, Association for Theatre in Higher Education
• Member, Women and Theater Program
• Member, Modern Language Association
• Member, American Society for Theatre Research
• Member-at-Large, Executive Committee, Women and Theatre Program, Association for Theatre in Higher Education
• Advisory Board, Centre for South Asia, Stanford (2015 - Present)
• Core Committee, Feminist, Gender, Sexuality Studies (2015 - Present)
• Member, Board ofDirectors, Performance Studies International (2011 - 2015)
• Member, Executive Committee, South Asian Literary Association, Modern Languages Association (2004 - 2006)
• Member, Research and Publications Committee, Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) (2004 - 2005)

Program Affiliations

• Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• Modern Thought and Literature

Professional Education

• Ph.D., Stanford University, Drama (2004)
• MA., Jawaharlal Nehru University, English (1996)
• B.A., Bangalore University, English (1993)