An Indian-American professor, Shailaja Paik, conducting research on and writing about Dalit women has received a USD 800,000 "genius" grant from the MacArthur Foundation which gives out awards every year to people with extraordinary achievements or potential. ADVERTISEMENT Announcing her fellowship, the Foundation said, “Through her focus on the multifaceted experiences of Dalit women, Paik elucidates the enduring nature of caste discrimination and the forces that perpetuate untouchability.” Paik is a distinguished research professor of history at the University of Cincinnati, where she is also an affiliate faculty in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Asian Studies.
“Paik provides new insight into the history of caste domination and traces the ways in which gender and sexuality are used to deny Dalit women dignity and personhood,” the Foundation said. The MacArthur Fellowships, popularly known as “genius” grants, are given to people across a spectrum from academia and science to arts and activism, who according to the Foundation are “extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential”. The selections are made anonymously based on recommendations received and it does not allow applications or lobbying for the grants, which come without any strings and are spread over five years.
The Foundation said that her recent project focused “on the lives of women performers of Tamasha, a popular form of bawdy folk theatre tha.
