Arjun Shankar

Arjun Shankar is an incoming Assistant Professor of Culture and Politics in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His research draws from theories in globalization and development, digital and visual ethnography, critical race and postcolonial theory, and curiosity studies, with a focus on poverty alleviation efforts and the help economy in India. He has published work on race, poverty, education, and visual regimes in Oxford Bibliographies, Visual Anthropology Review, American Anthropologist, and Visual Communication Journal. He creates participatory films and has taught in schools and universities in the United States and India.

Tune in to Arjun Shankar’s episode on the Choose to be Curious podcast!

• “Capitalist Curiosity and Student Mental Health, with Arjun Shankar”

Want to teach Arjun Shankar’s Curiosity Studies chapter? Consider pairing it with:

• David Matthews, “Capitalism and Mental Health,” Monthly Review (January 1, 2019).
• Anemona Hartocollis, “His College Knew of His Despair. His Parents Didn't, Until It Was Too Late,” The New York Times (May 12, 2018).
• Jenifer B. McKim, “As Student Suicides Rise, A Harvard Case Opens New Questions About School’s Responsibility,” WGBH News (September 16, 2019).
• Arthur Cauty, “Faces of Mental Health: a short film about depression and suicide in students” (March 25, 2019).

Read more from Arjun Shankar on curiosity!

• “Participation, Reception, Consent, Refusal,” in Routledge Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video, ed. Phillip Vannini (2020).
• “Listening to Images, Participatory Pedagogy, and Anthropological (Re)Inventions,” American Anthropologist, 120.4 (2019).
• “Capitalism, Curiosity, and Specialization,” IEEE CIS Newsletter on Cognitive and Developmental Systems 15.1 (2018).
• “The Curious Case of the Curiosity of the Curiosity Center,” Anthropology and Humanism 41.2 (2016): 233–242.
• Arjun Shankar and Mariam Durrani, “Curiosity and Education: A White Paper,” Center for Curiosity (2013).