Sruti Bala is Associate Professor at the Dept. of Theatre Studies of the University of Amsterdam, where she currently co-ordinates the MA Theatre Studies programme. She is affiliated to the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis and is a member of the ASCA advisory board.
Sruti's research interests are at the intersections of performance and politics, which has taken shape in specific research projects on nonviolent protest, participatory art, artistic activism, feminist and postcolonial/decolonial literary and cultural theories and translation.
She co-ordinates a five-year NWO-funded research project in co-operation with the University of Curaçao on the cultural practices of citizenship in the Dutch Caribbean. See project website here.
She is an active member of the collective International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India).
Sruti studies Indian percussion (Tabla) with Niti Ranjan Biswas.
28 April 2022, Bonn Centre for Dependency and Slavery Studies, University of Bonn
25 May 2022, Ringvorlesung "Vernetzen und zerstreuen? Die Zukunft akademischer Lehre" [Lecture Series 'Networking and Scattering: The Future of Academic Learning', Theatre Studies, Freie Universität Berlin
1-3 June 2022, Sexuality and Embodiment on Stage across Geopolitical Borders, University of Amsterdam
04 June 2022, Nieuwe Makers Festival, Rotterdam
06-09 July 2022, PSi conference #27 Hunger 2022
25-26 July 2022, online seminar on post-independence theatre and performance by women in Ireland and India, University of Ulster
The five-year research project "Cultural Practices of Citizenship under Conditions of Fragmented Sovereignty: Gendered and Sexual Citizenship in Curaçao and Bonaire" (funded by the Dutch Research Council NWO) in partnership with the University of Curaçao will investigate how citizenship is practiced under conditions of fragmented national sovereignty. Departing from the recognition that citizenship is not only a legal status legal status based on (birth)-rights and filial duties, but equally a notion tied to the histories of the nation-state, its claims to modernity, and its legacies of colonialism, slavery, and gender inequalities, the project examines citizenship in Curaçao and Bonaire in terms of practices and incipient struggles for political subjectivity. It asks how citizenship is practiced and culturally articulated by subjects facing multiple forms of systemic inequalities. The proposed research consists of two multi-disciplinary doctoral projects on citizenship in relation to sexual minorities and gender relations respectively.
For updates, see our Project Website
Oluchi Igili: Legislative Theatre in Ondo State, Nigeria
(promoter: Prof. Dr. Kati Röttger)
Wigbertson Julian Isenia: Sexual Citizenship in the Dutch Caribbean
(promoter: Prof. Dr. Rivke Jaffe, co-promoter: Dr. Rose Mary Allen) - part of NWO-funded project
Aronnette Martis (University of Curaçao): Dance and Citizenship in the Dutch Caribbean
(promoter: Prof. Dr. Wim Rutgers, co-promoter: Dr. Rose Mary Allen) - part of NWO-funded project
Hari Prasad A. Sacré (University of Ghent): Decolonial and Intersectional Art Education in Belgium
(promoter: Prof. Dr. Kris Rutten)
Chiara Cartuccia (UvA): Performance/History
(promoter: Prof. Dr. Mia Lerm-Hayes)