Davesh Soneji

Davesh Soneji is a social historian working in the field of performing arts and South Asia studies. He teaches in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His work focuses on religion and the performing arts in South India addressing issues of gender, class and caste especially in the colonial context. His best known work is Unfinished Gestures: Devadāsīs, Memory, and Modernity in South India, a book on the social history of Tamil and Telugu-speaking professional female artists of South India. It was awarded the 2013 Bernard S. Cohn Book Prize from The Association for Asian Studies (AAS). He has edited Bharatanāṭyam: A Reader and has co-edited with Indira Viswanathan Peterson, Performing Pasts: Reinventing the Arts in Modern South India.

Prof. Soneji has held positions as Visiting Professor at the Central University of Hyderabad in India and Le Centre d'Études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (CEIAS) in Paris. He has previously taught at McGill University in Montreal, Canada for over twelve years. He is the co-founder and director of a non-profit organization working on social justice issues of Devadasis (hereditary performing artists of South India) called The Mangala Initiative.