​Shefali Chandra

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​Shefali Chandra

​Associate Professor of History, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Asian American Studies
Co-Director of Graduate Programs in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
PhD, University of Pennsylvania
BA, Mount Holyoke College
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contact info:

  • Email: sc23@wustl.edu
  • Phone: 314-935-5102
  • Office: McMillan Hall, Room 207

office hours:

  • Spring 2025
    Tuesdays, 11:30-1:30pm and by appointment
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mailing address:

  • Campus Box 1078
    Washington University
    One Brookings Drive
    St. Louis, MO 63130-4899

Shefali Chandra writes and teaches on South Asian globalization. Currently, Shefali is completing a book on the Indian relationship with the United States. 

Shefali enjoys working with students on Global South Asia, Indian Exceptionalism, the long history of the desire for "India" and the manipulation of that longing.  

Awards

International Dissertation Research Fellowship, Social Science Research Council and American Council of Learned Societies (1998-1999)

International Dissertation Research Fellowship, Social Science Research Council and American Council of Learned Societies (1998-1999)

Junior Long Term Fellow, American Institute of Indian Studies (1999-2000)

Women’s Studies Dissertation Writing Fellowship, Alice Paul Center, University of Pennsylvania (2001-2002)

Chimicles Fellowship for the Teaching of Writing, University of Pennsylvania (2002-2003)

Humanities Release Time, University of Illinois (2005-2006)

Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Faculty fellow (2004-2005)

List of Excellent Teachers, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

Common Ground Teaching Innovation Award, Washington University in St. Louis (2011)

Arts & Sciences Summer 2012 Seed Grant, Washington University in St. Louis (2012)

James McLeod Teaching Recognition Award, ArtSci Council, Washington University 2015

Center for the Humanities Washington University, Faculty Fellow 2015

Humanities Summer Research, Center for the Humanities 2016

Roland Grimm Award for Research in Asia, Washington University 2018

Faculty Research Grant, Center for the Humanities Washington University 2018

Center for the Humanities, Reading and Writing Group Grant, "A History of the Present" 2018-present

 

Courses


Undergraduate

The Fictions of South Asian America

Globalization and its Discontents: History, Political Economy and Culture

The Meaning of Pakistan

Incredible India: Globalization and Desire

South Asia in the Wider World: World History, 1300-present 

Loss, Longing and Absence: Narratives of the Partition of Pakistan and India 

Survey of South Asia, 1500-present 

Imperialism and Sexuality:  Writing Intensive

Postcolonial/ Queer

Women Write India: Transnational Narratives of Caste, Class and Gender

The World, according to Gender (survey of world history)

Feminism and Postcoloniality (postcolonial, feminist and anti-racist theory)

Invented Traditions, Contested Modernities: Caste, Language and Religion 

Colonialism and Culture. The British Empire, 1760- the present.

 

Graduate

From Decolonization to Globalization: How to End an Empire

Universal history and its Discontents : World, Global and Postcolonial histories

Postcolonial and Transnational Studies 

Imperialism and Sexuality

En/gendering history: Postcolonial, Queer, and Transnational Histories