Stine Simonsen Puri

Stine Simonsen Puri

PhD in Humanities

  • Karen Blixens Plads 8

    2300 København S

Personal profile

Primary fields of research

I study movement. Movement of bodies, minds, money, clouds and stars. I am interested in how we come to know the world, and speculate on the world through movement. Both the movement of our own bodies, as well as movement that we observe outside ourselves. Also, importantly, I consider myself an expert on India, on its history, culture and society, and I have lived, studied, travelled and done research in both rural and urban India for more than three years.

 

In my research, I have focused on gambling, climate and dance through a combination of ethnographic and historic methods. I have studied horse race betting as a method of researching excessive use of money in urban India. I have studied weather forecasting among farmers, rain gamblers and grain traders, as an entry into understanding engagements with climate risks in desert India. Furthermore, I have studied (and learnt) Indian temple dance as a way to come to grasp hinduism and gender in India, and finally, I am in the process of investigating the history of the dance eurythmy to shed light on embodied cultural exchange between East and West.

 

As an anthropologist I engage in methods of radical participation. This means that my main research methods has been dancing and gambling. Analytically, I like to combine a phenomenological approach that investigates the phenomena at a kinesthetic level, with a hermeneutic approach that takes into account the cultural significance given to the phenomena in the context of everyday lives, as well as a critical approach, that situates the phenomena in a historic context of power relations.

 

As a teacher, I try to open up these analytical possibilities for the students to develop flexible ways of understanding and engaging with the world and the cultural diversity that one encounters. This involves multi modal methods of teaching that for example experiments with the use of movement in class, as I am particularly interested in the body as both a sense organ and as an instrument of thinking.

Knowledge of languages

Danish, English, Hindi

Fields of interest

Movement, India and anthropology; this includes dance, gambling, money, climate, agriculture, hinduism, gender, esotericism, cultural exchange. 

CV

AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS

Danish Research Council for Independent Research, 2 year post-doc.

Elite Research Scholarship, The Danish Ministry of Science, travel grant.

Danish Research Council for Independent Research, 3 years full scholarship.

Indian Council of Cultural Research, 1 year full scholarship.

 

EDUCATION & INTERNATIONAL MOBILITY

2021:  Diploma in dance and dance pedadogy (eurythmy), Institute of Inspired Movement, Copenhagen/Goetheanum, Section for Arts of Eurythmy, Speech and Music, Dornach, Switzerland.

2020: Research Leadership Course. LEAD and Copenhagen University.

2019: Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, Department of Anthropology, 3 months.

2014: PhD in Humanities. Centre for Comparative Cultural Studies, Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University.

2012: Visiting Scholar, Institute for Public Knowledge, School of Arts and Sciences, New York University, 6 months.

2009- : Ph.D. Candidate, Centre for Comparative Cultural Studies, Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University.

2006: M.Sc. in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University.

2004: BA in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Institute of Anthropology, Copenhagen University

2003-2004: Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.

1999-2001: Undergraduate at Institute for Political Science, Copenhagen University.

 

ACADEMIC POSITIONS & TEACHING

2021- Teaching Associte Professor, Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University.

2018: Associte Professor, Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University.

2014-2018: Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University.

2013: External lecturer, Centre for Comparative Cultural Studies, Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University.

2010: Teaching course for BA and MA students, Economic Culture, Centre for Comparative Cultural Studies, Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University.

2009: Teaching course for BA and MA students, Emotions – Culture and Political Economy, Centre for Comparative Cultural Studies, Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University.

2008-2009: Research Assistant, Centre for Comparative Cultural Studies, Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University.

 

RESEARCH GROUPS

2014-2018: Escalations, Copenhagen University.

2012-2015: Futures of Finance, Institute for Public Knowledge, New York University.

2009-2014: Gambling Research Network, Goldsmith College, University of London.

2009-2012: Alternative Spaces, Copenhagen University.

2008-2016: The Tranquebar Initiative, Copenhagen and Chennai.

 

Keywords

  • Faculty of Humanities
  • Anthropology
  • India
  • Economy
  • dance
  • movement
  • gambling
  • finance
  • play
  • Hinduism
  • Climate
  • agriculture
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