Mytheli Sreenivas, professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, has been appointed chair of the department for a four-year term, effective July 1, 2023.

Sreenivas’ course offerings center on comparative women’s history, on transnational feminisms, and on reproductive rights and justice. Her research is concerned with the history of modern South Asia, with a focus on women’s and gender history, the history of sexuality and the family, colonialism and nationalism, and the cultural and political economy of reproduction. These foci are at the heart of two books penned by Sreenivas, Wives, Widows, and Concubines: The Conjugal Family Ideal in Colonial India and Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern India.

Sreenivas received her B.A. from Yale University in 1994 and her Ph.D. in Modern South Asian History and Graduate Certificate in Women's Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 2001. Her teaching has been recognized by the Ratner Distinguished Teaching Award and the Paul W. Brown Excellence in Teaching Award.