Akhil gupta
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Akhil Gupta is a famous scholar in the field of social and cultural anthropology. He currently is an Associate Professor at Stanford University.
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[edit] Biographical Details
He is married to Purnima Mankekar, a fellow professor and scholar in the same field. Gupta and Mankekar have an adopted girl child, Deeya Shivani.
[edit] Education
Gupta did his undergraduate studies in Mechanical Engineering from Western Michigan University following that with a Mechanical Engineering Masters from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Gupta then spent the next eight years getting a Ph.D. in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford University.
[edit] Research
Gupta has done extensive work in rural North India. His focus has been to analyze a variety of theories via analyzing the ethnography of rural India. In his book, Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India, Gupta analyzes whether post-colonial theory can be applied to subaltern rural places. He also uses agriculture to understand the growth of modern India. Most of his work has taken place in the rural Indian town of Alipur. Gupta has also tried to understand the ethnography of the state - as lived, understood and discussed in rural India.
[edit] 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 1997
[edit] Tenure-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 In front of public outcry and student pressure, the decision was rescinded and Gupta was awarded tenureship within the department.
[edit] Selected Publications
- Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India
- Editor, The Anthropology of the State: A Reader (with Aradhana Sharma)
- Editor, Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology (with James Ferguson)
