Talk:Laura Brueck

By Rutvi Dattani

Laura Brueck is Chair and associate professor of South Asian Literature and Culture, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University. She is the co-founder and co-director, with Ivy Wilson, of the Race, Caste, and Colorism Project. She is also a founding board member of the Modern Endangered Archives Program.

As per her profile on Northwestern University webpage, her research interests span across caste and race, Dalit literature, Indian detective fiction and media, modern and contemporary Hindi literature, theory and practice of translation, postcolonial literature and literary theory, South Asian cinema and media studies, comparative literature, world literature.

As per her bio, she has published no books, papers or research pertaining to the impact or relationship between Islam and Hinduism / Hindutva or the Indian Government.

In 2021, she endorsed the "Dismantling Global Hindutva" conference and made an unsubstantiated statement

"the current government of India [in 2021] has instituted discriminatory policies including beef bans, restrictions on religious conversion and interfaith weddings, and the introduction of religious discrimination into India’s citizenship laws. The result has been a horrifying rise in religious and caste-based violence, including hate crimes, lynchings, and rapes directed against Muslims, non-conforming Dalits, Sikhs, Christians, adivasis and other dissident Hindus. Women of these communities are especially targeted. Meanwhile, the government has used every tool of harassment and intimidation to muzzle dissent. Dozens of student activists and human rights defenders are currently languishing in jail indefinitely without due process under repressive anti-terrorism laws."

Publications related to India

Works Related to Hinduism

1. Brueck, Laura R. "At the Intersection of Gender and Caste: Re-scripting Rape in Dalit Feminist Narratives." South Asian Feminisms, edited by Ania Loomba and Ritty Lukose, Duke University Press, 2012.

Works Related to Caste

1. Brueck, Laura R. Writing Resistance: The Rhetorical Imagination of Hindi Dalit Literature. Columbia University Press, 2014.
2. Brueck, Laura R. "Questions of Representation in Dalit Critical Discourse: Premchand and Dalit Feminism." Dalit Studies, edited by R.S. Rawat and K. Satyanarayana, Duke University Press, 2016, pp. 180-201.
3. Brueck, Laura R., and Ajay Navaria. Unclaimed Terrain: Stories by Ajay Navaria. Navayana, 2013.
4. Brueck, Laura R. "The Emerging Complexity of Dalit Consciousness." Himal South Asian, vol. 23, 2010, pp. 44-47.
5. Brueck, Laura R. "Mainstreaming Marginalized Voices: The Dalit Lekhak Sangh and the Negotiations over Hindi Dalit Literature." Claiming Power From Below: Dalits and the Subaltern Question in India, 2008.
6. Brueck, Laura R. "Critical Caste Studies and the Politics of Translating Dalit Literature." The Massachusetts Review, vol. 64, no. 3, 2023, pp. 32-49.
7. Brueck, Laura R. "Dalit Writing: The Works of Kusum Meghval." SAGAR (South Asia Graduate Research Journal), vol. 8, 2002, pp. 74-99.
8. Brueck, Laura. “Good Dalits and Bad Brahmins.” South Asia Research, vol. 30, no. 2, July 2010, pp. 125–44, https://doi.org/10.1177/026272801003000202.

   Laura supports injustice towards Brahmins by supporting the generalized portrayal of Brahmins as universally bad along side with the victimization narrative of Dalits.

Works Related to India & South Asia

1. Brueck, Laura R., and Francesca Orsini. "Crime Fiction in South Asia." The Cambridge Companion to World Crime Fiction, edited by Stephen Knight, Cambridge University Press, 2022, pp. 141-159.
2. Brueck, Laura R., Smith, John, and Verma, Nikhil. "Introduction: Out of the West, Out of the Text." Indian Sound Cultures, Indian Sound Citizenship, University of Michigan Press, 2020.
3. Brueck, Laura R. "Mother Tongues—the Disruptive Possibilities of Feminist Vernaculars." South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, vol. 43, no. 5, 2020, pp. 988-1008.
4. Brueck, Laura R. "Bhais Behaving Badly: Vernacular Masculinities in Hindi Detective Novels." South Asian Popular Culture, vol. 18, no. 1, 2020, pp. 29-46.