Talk:Jigna Desai
Jigna Desai is a Professor in the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies and Asian American Studies, currently at the University of Minnesota[1] as of May 2024. According to his university profile, his specialties are Asian American literature and media, feminist theory, postcolonial studies, queer/sexuality studies, South Asian diasporas and critical disability studies, autism, and neuronormativity.
He has published no books, papers, or research pertaining to Hindus, the Indus Civilization, or caste.
On November 5, 2017, he signed the letter submitted by the South Asia Faculty Group (SAFG) to the California State Board of Education[2] where he:
- Misrepresented scholarship stating "Mythological terms substitute for historical ones for example the 'Indus Valley Civilization' (a fact-based geographic term) appears to be replaced with a religiously-motivated and ideologically charged term 'Indus-Saraswati/Sarasvati Civilization'. The Saraswati is a mythical river"[3][4][5]
- Implied that Christians and Muslims existed in Ancient India, prior to the founding of these religions
In 2016, he signed a letter endorsing a letter submitted by the South Asia Faculty Group[6][7] where it addressed the State Board of Education, California Department of Education, dated May 17, 2016. In this letter they requested removing the word India from textbooks. In addition, they falsely[8] stated:
- "There is no established connection between Hinduism and the Indus Civilization."
- "It is inappropriate to remove mention of the connection of caste to Hinduism."
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Book Chapters[edit]
- Desai, Jigna. The Scale of Diasporic Cinema: Negotiating National and Transnational Cultural Citizenship. Routledge Handbook on Indian Cinema, edited by Moti Gokulsing and Wimal Dissanayake, Routledge, 2013, pp. 206-217.
- Desai, Jigna, and Rani Neutill. The Anxieties of ‘New’ Indian Modernity: Globalization, Diaspora, and Bollywood. A Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism, edited by Ato Quayson and Girish Daswani, Blackwell Publishing, 2013, pp. 233-248.
- Desai, Jigna. Bollywood Abroad: South Asian Diasporic Cosmopolitanism and Indian Cinema. South Asian American Cosmopolitanism, edited by Gita Rajan and Shailja Sharma, Stanford University Press, 2006, pp. 115-137.
- Desai, Jigna. Planet Bollywood: Indian Cinema in Asian America. East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture, edited by Shilpa Dave, LeiLani Nishime, and Tasha Oren, New York University Press, 2005, pp. 55-71.
- Banerjee, Koel, and Jigna Desai. Mompreneur in the Multiplex: Entrepreneurial Technologies of the ‘New Woman’ Subject in the Age of Neoliberal Globalization. Bollywood’s New Woman: Liberalization, Liberation and Contested Bodies, edited by Megha Anwer and Anupama Arora, Rutgers University Press.
References[edit]
- ↑ Jigna Desai University Profile accessed 16 May, 2024
- ↑ 2017 South Asia Faculty Group (SAFG) Letter to the California State Board of Education
- ↑ Chakrabarti, Dilip, and Sukhdev Saini. The Problem of the Sarasvati River and Notes on the Archaeological Geography of Haryana and Indian Punjab. Aryan Books International, 2009.
- ↑ Danino, Michel. The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati. Penguin Books, 2010.
- ↑ McIntosh, Jane R. A Peaceful Realm: The Rise and Fall of the Indus Civilization. Westview Press, 2002, p. 24. where she stated "Suddenly it became apparent that the “Indus” Civilization was a misnomer—although the Indus had played a major role in the development of the civilization, the “lost Saraswati” River, judging by the density of settlement along its banks, had contributed an equal or greater part to its prosperity. Many people today refer to this early state as the “Indus-Saraswati Civilization” and continuing references to the “Indus Civilization” should be an abbreviation in which the “Saraswati” is implied. There are some fifty sites known along the Indus whereas the Saraswati has almost 1,000. This is misleading figure because erosion and alluviation has between them destroyed or deeply buried the greater part of settlements in the Indus Valley itself, but there can be no doubt that the Saraswati system did yield a high proportion of the Indus people’s agricultural produce"
- ↑ 5-17 Prof. S. Shankar et al support letter
- ↑ 5-17 Kamala Visweswaran South Asian Faculty Group
- ↑ Gupta, S. P. 'The Dawn of Civilization.' In History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization: Volume I: Part 1, edited by G. C. Pandey and D. P. Chattopadhyaya. New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 1999.