Dean, School of Human Studies and Professor, Gender Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi
For Exemplary contributions to Gender Knowledge and Feminist Practice
As the session draws to a close, a large number of the audience makes a beeline to establish a personal connection with the speaker who has touched a chord within. This scene is repeated each time Krishna Menon delivers a talk or conducts a workshop. A similar scene is often witnessed in the corridors of Ambedkar University where Prof. Krishna Menon teaches Feminist Theory. Students huddle around her as she concludes a lecture, then walk along to continue the discussion and raise a point. Krishna Menon obviously has the ability to make complex feminist concepts come alive and anchor them in the everyday experience.
Krishna strives constantly to push the envelope on crafting context-sensitive approaches to feminist theory and practice. Her extensive scholarly work seeks to give articulation to feminist theory with an Indian sensibility. Her analyses of social movements in India, autoethnographic essays, commentaries on feminism, women’s rights, and democracy draw on diverse sources of knowledge and expression. The evocative titles of her repertoire are reflective of the diversity and depth of her interests and engagements.
Her pedagogy reflects the best traditions of feminism. As a member of the group that devises gender studies programs across the country, she brings understandings from the classical traditions of the Arts in India to enrich her pedagogy. She has familiarized her students with innovative and creative methodologies of expression and dialogue: a dance performance during a Peace and Conflict Studies conference, a film-making workshop to address issues around women’s work and crafting a totem pole as part of a gender workshop.
Krishna insists that her pedagogy draws on her Guru’s mantra that ‘a good teacher should convey the powerful and somewhat iconoclastic idea that her discipline is a construction of a particular moment and should be examined from different vantage points’. Krishna does not shy away from analyzing her own position of privilege and authority vis-à-vis her students and others in the campus space. She transmits the same critical acumen to her students as they navigate the complex issues of patriarchy and gender-based violence in society. For Krishna, the pivots of authentic feminist pedagogic practice are the ability to not just understand concepts at the level of intellect but to apply knowledge to address contemporary concerns. Krishna encourages her students to engage with social movements for change to enhance their intellectual engagement. The classroom, she believes, must provide a window to the world but also a door so that the student can step out, engage and bring transformative change in her own life and that of others.
Krishna Menon is Professor and Dean at School of Human Studies at Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD), and teaches at the Gender Studies Department. She is a key partner in the Campus Equity Initiative of WISCOMP. She has taught at the Department of Political Science, Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi, and was Director of the Aung San Suu Kyi Center for Peace.
She has published books and papers on Feminist Theory and Politics, debates within Political Theory and issues in Indian Politics. She has conducted gender workshops and delivered lectures for diverse audiences including government departments, not for profit organizations and academics.