For the past twenty years, Singer has been studying Indian elections in general and rural politics in particular, living in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh while conducting this research. She has written books and articles on a range of related topics, initially focusing on the 1930s and more recently turning to the post-independence period. Her books include Creating Histories: Oral Narratives and the Politics of History Making and A Constituency Suitable for Ladies and Other Social Histories of Indian Elections.

Among her current projects is a study of democratic movements among Tibetans in exile, which was in fact inspired by her interview with the Dalai Lama in 2001. She is also engaged in an ongoing study of women's advancement through the village election system (called Panchayats) in India.

Areas of Expertise

History of India, South Asia -- Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, globalization and migration, transnational communities

Education

B.A., Ph.D. University of Virginia

Selected Publications

A Constituency Suitable for Ladies and Other Social Histories of India's Elections (University Press, 2006).

"The Dalai Lama's Many Tibetan Landscapes" The Kenyon Review, (Summer/Fall, 2003).

Creating Histories: Oral Narrative and the Politics of History Making in 1930s India (1997).

Courses Taught

HIST 156 History of India
HIST 190 The Making of the Comtemporary World
HIST 358 Imagined India: Film & Fiction
HIST 387 Practice and Theory
HIST 454 Asians in Diaspora
HIST 473 Historical Perspective of Globalization
INST121 Globalization & Migration at Home
INST 201 Development of an International Society
INST 498 Sr. Honors
ASIA 490 Sr. Seminar
Gandhi and Civil Disobedience
India before Empire