THE TALK
Why does sex always have law breathing down its neck? Why can the law not get its hands off sex? Straddling the line between public and private, sex is created by the law as the thing that is at once the most private part of ourselves and the thing with the most public consequences. As such, sex and everything associated with it — desires, bodies, beliefs, practices — are closely monitored by the law. Thinking through one specific case, Professor Menon will try and trace the long arm of the law and the shadow that it casts across times, cultures, and desires. This talk promises to introduce you to a gamut of ideas around the capacious worlds of desire and the law in which we are already immersed.
Madhavi Menon, Author, Professor
Madhavi Menon is Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Studies in Gender and Sexuality at Ashoka University. She is the author of several books on Shakespeare and queer theory, and also editor of Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare (Duke University Press,
2011). Her most recent book is Infinite Variety: A History of Desire in India (Speaking Tiger, 2018), and she is currently at work on a book titled .
Professor Menon teaches classes on queer theory, the politics of desire and identity, literary theory, Renaissance literature, and Shakespeare. She has taught at Ithaca College and American University before moving back to Delhi to help set up Ashoka University.
