Jiya Pandya

Jiya Pandya is a lecturer jointly appointed in the Department of History and Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. They teach and research histories and theories of disabilty (and its ties to race, gender, and sexuality), feminist and crip theory, and 19th and 20th century transnational histories of science, technology, embodiment, welfare, and activism between South Asia, the United States, and global postwar institutions. 

They are currently working on two book projects and a collaborative edited volume on “peripheral crip critique.” The first book is on the genealogy of the concept of disability and its ties to caste in India and the U.S, tracing this genealogy across sites as varies as missionary leprosy work, yoga and physical education, the Indian handicraft industry, and international aid for prosthetic technologies. The second book, building on their work with the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, is on transnational and Global South vocabularies of disability justice. 

Their work has been published and is forthcoming in venues like Disability Studies Quarterly and Lateral and been supported by entities like the Institue for Citizens and Scholars and Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies. They received their PhD and MA from Princeton University and BA from Middlebury College. More information on Jiya can be found at their website, linked here.

Jiya’s classes focus on engaging in pedagogy as access work, encouraging hands-on research, and employing critical theories and histories of the body for contemporary advocacy across various fields. Undergraduate students interested in their courses, disability advocacy at Yale, or in senior thesis advising should feel free to reach out them via email,jiya.pandya@yale.edu"> jiya.pandya@yale.edu