Brahma Prakash Singh

Short Bio: Dr. Brahma Prakash is a writer, cultural theorist and an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the author of critically acclaimed book, Cultural Labour: Conceptualizing the ‘Folk Performance’ in India (Oxford University Press, 2019) and Body on the Barricades: Life, Art and Resistance in Contemporary India (LeftWord 2023). He has also published in various research journals, including Asian Theatre Journal, Performance Research, Theatre Research International, Economic and Political Weekly and others. He was a recipient of the Dwight Conquergood Award from the Performance Studies International in 2013. He was a fellow at the South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University, Germany (2021) and the CRASSH at Cambridge University, UK (2018-19). His popular columns on art, culture and politics frequently appear in Outlook, Scroll, Wire, Newsminute, Indian Cultural Forum and other media platforms. His opinions have also appeared in the BBC, Aljazeera, New Arab, Print and other popular podcasts in Hindi and English.

His research intersects theatre and performance studies, ritual, festival and protest studies in relation to the questions of marginality, aesthetics and cultural justice. He teaches courses on living traditions, regional theatre and performance practices, non-western aesthetic theories and specializes in the folk culture and performance traditions of North and Eastern India. A first generation learner from bahujan communities, he was born in a small farmers family in the village of Ganjpar, Ushmanpur in the district of Patna in Bihar and did his schooling and college education from Athmalgola, Bakhtiyarpur and Barh.