Rumya S. Putcha, assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Institute for Women's Studies and the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, has been awarded the 2022 Paula J. Giddings Best Article Award from Meridians Journal for, The Mythical Courtesan: Womanhood and Dance in Transnational India.” 

The award honors an author whose work embodies the groundbreaking nature and innovative spirit of Paula’s writing, and the winners are chosen each year by the Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism Editorial Advisory Board (EAB). 

About “The Mythical Courtesan,” the EAB said: 

This essay is beautifully written, theoretically sophisticated, and methodologically astute. The author effectively and confidently deploys a range of disciplinary methods and analytical frameworks: from ethnography to film analysis, feminist theory, and questions of affect. The result is a compelling and persuasive exploration of the ways that gender, caste, and media functioned in the thirties to produce idealized fictions of Indian womanhood and female sexuality. 

Dr. Putcha's article is featured with further discussion on Meridian's On the Line.