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Veena Das

Anthropology

Veena Das is an Indian anthropologist, born in 1945, who holds the Krieger-Eisenhower Professorship of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University after chairing its anthropology department from 2001 to 2008 and earlier teaching at the Delhi School of Economics from 1967 to 2000. Her work on the anthropology of violence examines how violence becomes woven into ordinary life rather than simply interrupting it, engaging closely with the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Stanley Cavell, most fully in her book Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary (2006). Her other books include Structure and Cognition: Aspects of Hindu Caste and Ritual (1977) and Affliction: Health, Disease, Poverty (2014). She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2019.

Facts
Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account
1945 1
BirthplaceSourced to the subject's own account
India 1
Nationality / CultureSourced to the subject's own account
Indian 1
Defining ContributionSourced to the subject's own account
Pioneered the anthropological study of violence and social suffering, examining how violence becomes woven into ordinary life rather than simply interrupting it. 1
Notable WorkSourced to the subject's own account
Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary (2006) 1
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Veena Das (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • lead section: born
    born 1945 in India
  • lead section: nationality
    Indian anthropologist
  • body section: violence and social suffering
    Since the eighties she became engrossed in the study of violence and social suffering.
  • body section: Life and Words
    Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary (California University Press, 2006)
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