Feminists in the University: Thinking with Inderpal Grewal

by Sasha Sabherwal
PhD Candidate, American Studies & Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

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Professor Inderpal Grewal’s career has shaped the course of feminist thinking and epistemologies across the world. Her work has been at the forefront of theorizing gender, masculinities, political violence, securitization, and surveillance. At Yale, Professor Grewal has spent the last decade working interdisciplinarily across Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, the Ethnicity, Race and Migration Studies Program, American Studies, and South Asian Studies. These academic homes have been places of refuge for many students across the university, and places where Professor Grewal offered fierce mentorship, academic support, and intersectional teaching. Her approach has always been to build a strong community of feminist scholars by focusing on pedagogy and research. As a graduate student over the last four years, I have been Professor Grewal’s student, teaching fellow, and writing collaborator. In each of these capacities, she has taught me to think across borders, methods, and disciplines. She has also inspired and encouraged me, while simultaneously guiding me on a path towards an ethical praxis of research and teaching.

This semester, an event – Feminists in the University – celebrated the legacy of Professor Grewal and her commitment to feminist mentorship. The event featured a panel of Professor Grewal’s former students: Sahana Ghosh (Harvard University), Mimi Thi Nguyen (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign), Randy Ontiveros (University of Maryland), Kaneesha Parsard (University of Chicago), and Neha Vora (Lafayette College). They reflected genuinely on the ways Professor Grewal has shaped and continues to shape their lives, and how she has impacted their approaches to teaching, administrative labor, program building, and curriculum development across their graduate student years and in their current positions as faculty. The admiration, respect, and love for Professor Grewal was reflected in the standing room only crowd overflowing throughout the room.

Professor Grewal’s commitment to feminist mentorship is just one of the reasons that she has been awarded the Graduate Mentor Award in recognition of her exceptional support of the professional, scholarly and personal development of her students. This is the University’s principal award for superb teaching, advising and mentoring of graduate students. Her graduate students have supported her for this award for many years and are certain they could not have endured graduate school without her support and guidance. Though Professor Grewal’s departure from Yale is a profound loss, the foundation she has paved in WGSS will undoubtedly continue as it lives on in her students and her ongoing research and writing.