Biography

Prof. (Dr.) Mani Shekhar Singh is Professor of Sociology and Executive Director of the Centre for Law and Humanities at Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal University. He is trained in social and visual anthropology at the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. His work focuses on folk art forms, popular visual culture, and creativity, with a particular emphasis on the pictorial practices of women painters in the Mithila region of Bihar, India. His extensive research on women artists of Mithila culminated in his doctoral thesis titled “Folk Art, Identity and Performance: A Sociological Study of Maithil Painting.” This work was completed at the Department of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, where he was awarded a PhD. Prof. Singh also earned his MA and MPhil degrees in Sociology from the Department of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.

He has taught at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts in New York, as well as at the Department of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. He has served as a visiting professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and was a postdoctoral teaching fellow at the Department of Anthropology at the New School for Social Research. With decades of experience in undergraduate and postgraduate studies specialising in visual anthropology and sociology of art, he has designed and taught a variety of courses. These include Introduction to Sociology, Sociology of Law, Cricket, Law and Society, Art, Law and Images of Justice, Legal Aesthetics, Court Architecture and Access to Justice, Visual Culture, Media and Global Flows of Images in South Asia, Anthropology of Art, Art and Creativity in a Globalising World, and Exploring Art, Craft and Creativity. He is a dedicated teacher and mentor committed to advancing critical theory and visual methodologies in undergraduate curricula. His long-lasting research interests encompass visual anthropology, folk painting, vernacular art and craft traditions, popular and tourist art worlds, traditional art, improvisation and creativity, political art and posters, street art, graffiti and urban aesthetics, images of justice, as well as courtroom architecture and visual culture.

Prof. Singh has received several fellowships and awards, which include Visiting Fellow, the Kate Hamburger Kolleg “Recht als Kultur,” Bonn (2012-13), IGK Arbeit und Lebenslauf in globalgeschichtlicher Perspective, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (2011), Directeur d’Études Associé, Foundation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris (2010), the New India Foundation Fellowship (2008-2009), the Rockefeller Fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (2005-6), Fellowship, Indo-Dutch Programme in Alternative Development (IDPAD) and Institute of Socio-Economic Research on Development and Democracy (ISERDD), Delhi (2004-2005). India Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (2002-2004), the German Volkswagen Foundation and University of Heidelberg Fellowship (2002-2003), the Indira Gandhi Centre for the Arts research grant (2001), and the Junior Research Fellowship of the University Grants Commission (1986-91).

As an accomplished interdisciplinary researcher exploring the intersections of cultural identity, visual media and contemporary art movements, he has published in several edited volumes, museum catalogues, reports and journals, including Contributions to Indian Sociology, Indian Folklife, Indian Horizons, Economic and Political Weekly, and Domains. He is currently completing his book manuscript titled Folk Art Enters the World: Mithila Painting from Village to Nation and Beyond. This monograph builds upon his doctoral and postdoctoral research on the pictorial practice of women artists in Mithila.