Sangita Gopal, an associate professor in the UO Department of English and in the Cinema Studies Program, has recently been selected to serve a two-year term as associate director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society.

Gopal has taught at the UO since 2004. In her current positions in the  English department and cinema studies, she advises doctoral students in the fields of cinema studies, postcolonial studies, gender theory and South Asian media studies.

Gopal lived in Kolkata, India, (formerly Calcutta) until she moved to upstate New York to attend graduate school at the University of Rochester, where she earned her doctorate in literary theory and film studies. While living in New York, she also worked as an actress, a director and eventually as a manager of an off-Broadway acting troupe.

Gopal is best known for her authorship of two books, one of which is already published, “Conjugations: Marriage and Form in New Bollywood Cinema,” and her current book project, “Between State and Capital: Women Make Movies.”

Both projects have been supported by Center for the Study of Women in Society faculty research grants and have been influenced by personal experiences Gopal has had at the UO and in the media industry. She describes her research as “the intersection of feminist media studies, postcolonial studies and globalization.”

Gopal has also co-edited two books, one with Sujata Moorti, “Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance,” and the other with Rajinder Dudrah, Anustup Basu and Amit Rai, “Intermedia in South Asia: The Fourth Screen.”

“CSWS, through its research interest groups, Women of Color Project and various events, has allowed me, over the years, to enter into and learn from conversations with a broader community of feminist scholars,” Gopal said. “It has provided networking opportunities as well as intellectual camaraderie, feedback and mentoring. My work, but also my life here, would not have been possible without this support.”

Gabriela Martinez, the current associate director of the center, is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and professor in the UO School of Journalism and Communication. Gopal will succeed her when her term ends in fall 2015.

— By Nathaniel Brown, Public Affairs Communications intern