Crooked Cats: Beastly Encounters in the Anthropocene

CASI Seminar

in partnership with the South Asia Center, Dept. of Anthropology, and Environmental Innovations Initiative

Nayanika Mathur
Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies, University of Oxford
CASI In-Person Seminar — 12 noon EST
*This event does not offer a virtual option*

Center for the Advanced Study of India
Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science & Economics
133 South 36th Street, Suite 230
Philadelphia PA 19104-6215
*Masking is optional*

About the Seminar:
Big cats—tigers, leopards, and lions—that make prey of humans are commonly known as “man-eaters.” Crooked Cats: Beastly Encounters in the Anthropocene reconceptualizes them as cats that have gone off the straight path to become “crooked.” Building upon fifteen years of research in India, it moves beyond both colonial and conservationist accounts to place crooked cats at the center of the question of how we are to comprehend a planet in crisis. There are many theories on why and how a big cat comes to prey on humans, with the ecological collapse emerging as a central explanatory factor. Yet, uncertainty over the precise cause of crookedness persists. Crooked Cats explores in vivid detail the many lived complexities that arise from this absence of certain knowledge to offer startling new insights into both the governance of nonhuman animals and their intimate entanglements with humans. Through creative ethnographic storytelling, Crooked Cats illuminates the Anthropocene in three critical ways: as method, as a way of reframing human-nonhuman relations on the planet, and as a political tool indicating the urgency of academic engagement.

About the Speaker:
Nayanika Mathur is a Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at the University of Oxford. She is the author of two monographs: Paper Tiger: Law, Bureaucracy, and the Developmental State in Himalayan India (Cambridge University Press 2016) and Crooked Cats: Beastly Encounters in the Anthropocene (Chicago University Press 2021, HarperCollins India 2022). In 2022-23, she will be a resident at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton as a member of the School of Social Sciences, writing on methodological questions opened up by the climate crisis.

The Nand & Jeet Khemka Distinguished Lecture Series is an endowed public program of the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI). Launched in the 2007-08 academic year, and made possible through the generous support of the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, the series brings renowned India specialists to the Penn community and serves as a critical forum for analyzing and understanding the complex economic, political, social, and cultural changes that the world’s largest democracy is experiencing, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
The Saluja Global Fellows Program has been made possible by the generous gift from Vishal Saluja ENG’89 W’89. CASI was excited to launch the program during the 2022–23 academic year, coinciding with the Center’s 30th Anniversary. This new program enables CASI to invite eminent leaders and rising experts on contemporary India preferably from the fields of media, culture, law, and contemporary history to be in residence for one to two weeks at CASI.