Pravina Shukla Named Provost Professor at Indiana University

Dr. Pravina Shukla was recently named a Provost Professor at Indiana University. The Provost Professor Award is given each year by the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs. It is intended to bring significant honor to faculty who have achieved local, national, and international distinction in both teaching and research/creative activity. Provost Professors receive an annual award of $2,500 for three years and a $5,000 grant for a project that demonstrates how teaching and research are mutually reinforcing.

Shukla is a professor in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. She received her doctorate from UCLA in 1998 and joined the faculty at IU in 2000. She is an adjunct professor for the Department of Anthropology and the Department of American Studies, and she holds adjunct appointments with other units on campus as well. She is a consulting curator for the Mathers Museum of World Cultures.

Shukla conducts ethnographic fieldwork in multiple languages in India, Brazil, Europe and the United States. This fieldwork directly informs her publications as well as her teaching. She teaches both undergraduate and graduate students, and she imparts her knowledge of the aspects of cultural diversity, including the values, beliefs, aesthetics and worldview perspectives that are encompassed within them.

She is the author of four books. Her publication The Grace of Four Moons: Dress, Adornment, and the Art of the Body in Modern India (2008) garnered her the A.K. Coomaraswamy Book Prize from the South Asia Council for the Association for Asian Studies. Shukla documented the personal adornment of myriad women in India and interviewed goldsmiths, weavers and merchants dealing in clothing and ornaments. She investigated the production and commerce, as well as the creative adornment aspects. This highly regarded book established her pre-eminence as a material culture scholar and offers a comprehensive model for the study of body art in India.

Shukla is committed to educational excellence, evidenced by being awarded the Trustees Teaching Award four times and the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. She received the Faculty Mentor Award from the Graduate and Professional Student Government. She has served as the director of undergraduate studies and currently serves as the director of graduate studies. She has served on several university committees and councils. She was recently elected to the Fellows of the American Folklore Society, the highest recognition in the discipline for scholarship, teaching and service to the field.

Congratulations to Dr. Shukla on this impressive accomplishment! You can read more about the award on IU’s website.

Photo courtesy of the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Indiana University.