I am an independent scholar based in Bengaluru. At present, I am working on three related themes: a) Education, forms of cultivation and differing notions of a good life b) Understanding Bhakti as a phenomenon and its relation to Carnatic music and Indian performative arts c) The salience of Itihasas and Puranas in India/South Asia at large.
I offer courses in Liberal Arts (Humanities) that are meant to enable students to think more seriously about cultures and their relation to education and learning as a researchable and research-worthy field. My research interests span philosophy of culture, education, social epistemology, postcolonial studies, literature and music.
My book Liberal Education and Its Discontents: The Crisis in the Indian University was published in 2019 by Routledge. The book received excellent reviews by well-known scholars in the field and a review by the eminent educationist Professor Krishna Kumar was published in The Hindu (Feb 2020). A revised version of my doctoral thesis, the book focuses on conception(s) of education, learning and forms of knowledge and their relation to culture.
I have worked as an educational/research consultant and offered courses in liberal arts at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bengaluru. I also worked as a faculty in the English Department, Mount Carmel College, Bengaluru for close to 15 years.
A Fulbright-Nehru Scholar (2012–13), at Columbia University, NYC, I have a doctorate (2015) in Cultural Studies from the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bengaluru, affiliated to Manipal University, Karnataka, India.