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Bio

Aanmona Priyadarshini is a sociocultural anthropologist whose scholarship focuses on violence, materiality, space, and religion in South Asia. Her book project, Shattered Sacred, Broken Lives, examines the 2012 destruction and subsequent reconstruction of eighteen Buddhist bihars in Bangladesh, showing how the conversion of sacred objects into tourist attractions affected local religious practices, ethics, and social relations. Analyzing the affective power of rubble, her research uncovers how systemic oppression and religious marginalization are produced, reproduced, and resisted spatially and materially. Priyadarshini's research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Fulbright Program, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh. 

Priyadarshini's latest research project examines the interplay between human and nonhuman daily practices, spatial strategies, and the complex entanglements of spiritual beliefs, syncretic rituals, and traditions in shaping and continually redefining the Sundarbans, a UNESCO World Heritage site that harbors the world's largest mangrove forest, marginalized communities, and endangered species.

Research Interests

Space • Religion • Violence • Environment • South Asia

Courses Taught

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology • Humanity and Global Environmental Change • People and Cultures of Southeast Asia • Introduction to Ethnographic Methods • Culture and Diversity in American Life • Gender, Sex, and Sexuality: Global Perspectives • Gender, Violence, and Health • Social Organization - Kinship and Family • History of Anthropology, Part Two • Advanced Seminar in Ethnology: Space and Place