ABOUT ME
I was trained in four-field anthropology and biological sciences at Stanford University (B.A. and B.S.) and in linguistic anthropology at the University of Michigan (M.A. and Ph.D.) under Judith T. Irvine (other committee members included Barbra Meek, Andrew Shryock, and Thomas Trautmann). After completing postdoctoral fellowships at the University of British Columbia and New York University, I was hired as a full-time faculty member in linguistic anthropology at NYU in 2011, where I am now Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies. I am also Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology with Chaise LaDousa and a Junior Fellow in the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography.
PROFESSIONAL HISTORY
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Sep 2018 - present
New York University, NY, Department of Anthropology
VISITING PROFESSOR
May 2015 - June 2015
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, Departments of South Asian Studies/Linguistics
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Sep 2011 - May 2018
New York University, NY, Department of Anthropology
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR/FACULTY FELLOW
Sep 2010 - May 2011
New York University, NY, Department of Anthropology
POSTDOCTORAL TEACHING FELLOW
Sep 2008 - May 2010
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Department of Anthropology
FELLOWSHIPS
2018-2020
RARE BOOK SCHOOL - MELLON SOCIETY OF FELLOWS IN CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
2018-2021
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION SENIOR RESEARCH AWARD
2019-2020
WENNER-GREN FOUNDATION POST-PH.D. RESEARCH GRANT
PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
In progress. Das, Sonia. Stopping for Blue Lights: Language, Evidence, and Law in Racialized Policing.
Das, Sonia N. 2016. Linguistic Rivalries: Tamil Migrants and Anglo-Franco Conflicts. New York: Oxford University Press.
JOURNAL ARTICLES
Under review. Das, Sonia, Sherina Feliciano-Santos, and Hyemin Lee. "Racial Optics of Escalation."Current Anthropology.
Das, Sonia. 2020. “Transliteration Across Cities: The Interdiscursive Ethnohistory of a Tamil Francophonie.” Special issue, Script in South Asia: New Media and Semiotic Mediation, Signs and Society 8(1): 125-154.
Das, Sonia. 2020. “Correctness/Incorrectness/Correction.” The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology.
Das, Sonia. 2019. “The Unsociability of Commercial Seafaring: Language Practice and Ideology in Maritime Technocracy." American Anthropologist 12(1): 62-75.
Das, Sonia. 2017. “Failed Legacies of Colonial Linguistics: Lessons from Tamil Books in French India and French Guiana” Comparative Studies in Society and History 59(4): 846-883.
Das, Sonia. 2015. “Une division sociale du travail linguistique: Enseigner le tamoul comme langue d’origine à Montréal, Québec.” Anthropologie et Sociétés 39(3): 153-172.
Das, Sonia. 2012. “La Francophonie and Other Contact Zones: Revisiting the Comparative Study of Linguistic Minorities.”Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 22(3): 220-236.
Das, Sonia. 2011. “Rewriting the Past and Reimagining the Future: The Social Life of a Tamil Heritage Language Industry.”American Ethnologist 38(4): 774-789.
Das, Sonia. 2008. “Between Convergence and Divergence: Reformatting Language Purism in the Montréal Tamil Diasporas”Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 18(1): 1-23.
Das, Sonia. 2008. “The Talk of Tamils in Multilingual Montreal: A Study of Intersecting Language Ideologies in Nationalist Quebec.”Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 8(2): 230-247.
BOOK CHAPTERS
Under Review. Markkula, Johanna and Sonia Das. “Making the "Good Ship": Talk and the Political Economy of Social Justice at Sea.” Language and Social Justice: Global Perspectives. Kathleen Riley, Bernard Perley, and Inmaculada García-Sanchez, eds. New York: Bloomsbury Press.
n.d. Das, Sonia. “Grant Writing for Projects in Linguistic Anthropology.” Research Methods in Linguistic Anthropology. Sabina Perrino and Sonya Pritzker, eds. New York: Bloomsbury Press.
BOOK REVIEWS
Das, Sonia. 2009. “Little India: Diaspora, Time, and Ethnolinguistic Belonging in Hindu Mauritius.” P. Eisenlohr. 2006. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 19(2): 328-330.