Institute at Brown for Environment and Society

My research centers around the relationship between ecology and aesthetics in rural India, examining seasonal calendars, bird and animal based mythologies and forms of earth-based labor amongst neighboring lower-caste communities. I am currently focusing on a dissertation chapter on an annual rain-making ritual dedicated to a local deity in the Bankura district of rural Bengal. A recently published article deals with how the climate change-affected monsoon season has the been interpreted by Indian classical music.