About Lakshita Malik

Lakshita Malik is a doctoral student in the department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her work focuses on questions of intimacies, class, gender, and beauty in South Asia.

NBN Episodes hosted by Lakshita:

Brahma Prakash, "Cultural Labour: Conceptualizing the 'Folk Performance' in India" (Oxford UP, 2019)

August 26, 2022

Cultural Labour

Brahma Prakash
Hosted by Lakshita Malik

Folk performances reflect the life-worlds of a vast section of subaltern communities in India. What is the philosophy that drives these performances, …

Minh-Ha T. Pham, "Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Social Media's Influence on Fashion, Ethics, and Property" (Duke UP, 2022)

August 10, 2022

Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Minh-Ha T. Pham
Hosted by Lakshita Malik

In 2016, social media users in Thailand called out the Paris-based luxury fashion house Balenciaga for copying the popular Thai “rainbow bag,” using B…

Pallavi Banerjee, "The Opportunity Trap: High-Skilled Workers, Indian Families, and the Failures of the Dependent Visa Program" (NYU Press, 2022)

July 6, 2022

The Opportunity Trap

Pallavi Banerjee
Hosted by Lakshita Malik

The Opportunity Trap: High-Skilled Workers, Indian Families, and the Failures of the Dependent Visa Program (NYU Press, 2022) is the first book to loo…

Anastasia Piliavsky, "Nobody's People: Hierarchy as Hope in a Society of Thieves" (Stanford UP, 2020)

May 24, 2021

Nobody's People

Anastasia Piliavsky
Hosted by Lakshita Malik

What if we could imagine hierarchy not as a social ill, but as a source of social hope? Taking us into a "caste of thieves" in northern India, Anastas…

Tulasi Srinivas, "The Cow in the Elevator: An Anthropology of Wonder" (Duke UP, 2018)

January 26, 2021

The Cow in the Elevator

Tulasi Srinivas
Hosted by Lakshita Malik

In The Cow in the Elevator: An Anthropology of Wonder (Duke UP, 2018), Tulasi Srinivas explores a wonderful world where deities jump fences and priest…

Michiel Baas, "Muscular India: Masculinity, Mobility & the New Middle Class" (Context, 2020)

December 30, 2020

Muscular India

Michiel Baas
Hosted by Lakshita Malik

The gyms of urban ‘new India’ are intriguing spaces. While they cater largely to well-off clients, these shiny, modern institutions are also vehicles …

Oluwakemi M. Balogun, "Beauty Diplomacy: Embodying an Emerging Nation" (Stanford UP, 2020)

December 4, 2020

Beauty Diplomacy

Oluwakemi M. Balogun
Hosted by Lakshita Malik

Even as beauty pageants have been critiqued as misogynistic and dated cultural vestiges of the past in the US and elsewhere, the pageant industry is g…

Durba Mitra, "Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought" (Princeton UP, 2020)

September 21, 2020

Indian Sex Life

Durba Mitra
Hosted by Lakshita Malik

During the colonial period in India, European scholars, British officials, and elite Indian intellectuals—philologists, administrators, doctors, ethno…

Ronak K. Kapadia, "Insurgent Aesthetics: Security and the Queer Life of the Forever War"(Duke UP, 2019)

September 3, 2020

Insurgent Aesthetics

Ronak K. Kapadia
Hosted by Lakshita Malik

In Insurgent Aesthetics: Security and the Queer Life of the Forever War (Duke University Press), Ronak K. Kapadia theorizes the world-making power of …

Elspeth H. Brown, "Work! A Queer History of Modeling" (Duke UP, 2019)

August 20, 2020

Work! A Queer History of Modeling

Elspeth H. Brown
Hosted by Lakshita Malik

From the haute couture runways of Paris and New York and editorial photo shoots for glossy fashion magazines to reality television, models have been a…

Gabriel Dattatreyan, "The Globally Familiar: Digital Hip-Hop, Masculinity, and Urban Space in Delhi" (Duke UP, 2020)

August 3, 2020

The Globally Familiar

Gabriel Dattatreyan
Hosted by Lakshita Malik

In his book The Globally Familiar: Digital Hip-Hop, Masculinity, and Urban Space in Delhi (Duke University Press, 2020), Gabriel Dattatreyan departs f…

Vanita Reddy, "Fashioning Diaspora: Beauty, Femininity and South Asian American Culture" (Temple UP, 2016)

July 30, 2020

Fashioning Diaspora

Vanita Reddy
Hosted by Lakshita Malik

Vanita Reddy, in her book Fashioning Diaspora: Beauty, Femininity and South Asian American Culture (Temple University Press, 2016), locates diasporic …

L. L. Wynn, "Love, Sex, and Desire in Modern Egypt: Navigating the Margins of Respectability" (U Texas Press, 2018)

July 17, 2020

Love, Sex, and Desire in Modern Egypt

L .L. Wynn
Hosted by Lakshita Malik

L.L. Wynn’s book Love, Sex, and Desire in Modern Egypt: Navigating the Margins of Respectability (University of Texas Press) is an interrogation of ur…