Gita Rajan, the Jane Watson Irwin Visiting Associate Professor of Women's Studies, is co-editor of a new book, New Cosmopolitanisms: South Asians in the U.S. (Stanford University Press). The book, also co-edited by Shailja Sharma, associate professor of English at DePaul University, offers an in-depth look at the ways in which globalization, technology and travel have altered traditional patterns of immigration for South Asians who live and work in the United States and theorizes how their popular cultural practices and aesthetic desires are changing.
South Asians are presented as the twenty-first century's "new cosmopolitans": flexible enough to adjust to globalization's economic, cultural, and political imperatives, while maintaining elements of their distinct identity. The essays cover contemporary debates in anthropology, art, literature, religion, media and popular culture to assess
how South Asians are uniquely adaptable to mainstream culture of the US, but also vulnerable at this historical moment when nationalism and security have become tools to maintain conventional power relations in a changing world.
