Holly Donahue Singh

Regional focus: South Asia, India.

Topical interests: Reproduction, kinship studies, medical anthropology.

My topical interests developed out of many hours of conversation with female Indian university students who became my neighbors and friends in the dorm where I lived in 2000-2001 as a Fulbright scholar in the north Indian city of Lucknow. My dissertation research in Lucknow examines Muslims' views of the value of children as they express it through cultural definitions of appropriate reproduction, and in reference to the challenges of managing infertility culturally, medically, and/or spiritually. My research focuses specifically on the intersection of education, class, and religion in Muslim explanatory models of infertility. I am interested in how these factors shape Muslims' ideas about what infertility is, what infertility means, and the methods Muslims can and/or should employ to alleviate the suffering they associate with being unable to fulfill their aspirations for the ideal number and sex of children.

My secondary interests are in Hindi/Urdu language and literature, and I taught intermediate Hindi in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at UVA during the 2005-2006 academic year. My other courses include "Introduction to the Anthropology of Sex and Gender" (January 2006, with Amy Nichols-Belo), and "Fertility and the Future: Anthropology of Reproduction" (Summer 2006).

MA Paper: 2004. Our Two, Your Twenty-five? Hierarchy and the Politics of Reproduction "Writ Large" in Contemporary India