Josephine Kipgen

WGSS Ph.D. student Josephine Kipgen is an international student from India. She obtained a B.A. and M.A. in English from the Univ. of Delhi, India and an M.A. in WGS from the Univ. of Northern Iowa. Her areas of interest include postcolonial studies, women's writing, religion, and gender-based violence.

Josephine's M.A. thesis rendered a critical exploration of women's asceticism and the culture of goddess-worship in India, arguing that envisioning god/the divine as woman creates subversive avenues for dismantling patriarchal religious practices.  Her Ph.D. research focuses on the postcolonial politics of gendered violence in India.  Her study will argue that crimes against women find their root not only in deeply held gendered identities and androcentric practices grounded in caste and communal consciousness, but also have their origins in British administrative policies.