Dr. Thalia Gigerenzer

Biography

Thalia Gigerenzer is a cultural anthropologist and multi-media artist whose research focuses on atmospheres, emotions, gender, urban space, poetics, and conviviality in contemporary South Asia. Her dissertation research examined the everyday lives of low-income Muslim women in Delhi, India, emphasizing their efforts to maintain vibrant communities amidst political violence and insecurity. With a strong commitment to collaborative and community-engaged scholarship, Gigerenzer's research has received support from the Fulbright-Hays Program, the Charlotte Newcombe Foundation, and the Global Religion Research Institute at the University of Notre Dame. She is also a Rockefeller Fellow at the Center for Human Values and a fellow at the Center for the Study of Religion. Drawing on her experience as a journalist and radio producer, Gigerenzer employs collaborative, multi-media storytelling methods in her research, with ethnographic films and audio documentaries presented at anthropology conferences and featured in anthropology journals. Her award-winning journalistic work has been published in various outlets, including the New York Times, National Public Radio, BBC Radio, and Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Currently, she is working on a project titled 'Breathing Space: Creativity and Play in Toxic Environments,' which investigates how pollution is reshaping the social lives of children in low-income areas of Delhi, India. Gigerenzer holds a BA in South Asian Studies from the University of Chicago, an MA in Social Anthropology from SOAS University of London, and a PhD in Anthropology from Princeton University.

Research Interests