Biographical sketch:

Soumya James received her MA and PhD in Art History from Cornell University. Her PhD was on the significance of goddess images at three different Angkor period sites in Cambodia, dating between the early 10th and 12th centuries C.E. Rather than treating source materials as isolated units, her dissertation explores how images, monuments, landscape, myth and performance have fluid boundaries, connecting with and informing each other, thereby profoundly influencing the role of the feminine at these sites. She works on early Southeast Asian history, religion, politics and art, connections between built forms and landscape, gender studies and trade networks between Southeast Asia and South Asia. Since June 2011, she has been additionally working as the coordinator for the Science and Society Programme at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore.