Leela Gandhi is Professor of English at The University of Chicago and a noted academic in the field of postcolonial theory. She is the co-editor of the academic journal Postcolonial Studies, the author of the summary text Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction and she serves on the editorial board of the electronic journal, Postcolonial Text.

Early life and education

Gandhi was born in Bombay and is the daughter of the late Indian philosopher Ramchandra Gandhi

Ramchandra Gandhi

Ramchandra Gandhi was an Indian philosopher student of Peter Strawson and grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and Rajaji, the last Governor General of India...

 and the great-granddaughter of the Indian Independence movement

Indian independence movement

The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...

 leader Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...

. She has offered analysis that some of Mahatma Gandhi's philosophies (on nonviolence, vegetarianism, for example) and policies were influenced by transnational

Transnationalism

Transnationalism is a social movement and scholarly research agenda grown out of the heightened interconnectivity between people and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states....

 as well as indigenous sources. Her undergraduate degree is from Hindu College, University of Delhi

Hindu College, University of Delhi

Hindu College, Delhi is one of the oldest and well-known colleges in India, that was set up in 1899. It is under the affiliation of University of Delhi.It has seen enviable growth over the years. It offers undergraduate as well as postgraduate courses in Science, Humanities and Commerce...

 and her doctorate was obtained from Oxford University.

Reviews and critiques

With the publication of her first book Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction in 1998, Gandhi was described as mapping "the field in terms of its wider philosophical and intellectual context, drawing important connections between postcolonial theory and poststructuralism, postmodernism

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...

, marxism

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 and feminism

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

."

Her next book, Affective Communities, was written to "[reveal] for the first time how those associated with marginalized lifestyles, subcultures, and traditions--including homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

, vegetarianism

Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...

, animal rights

Animal rights

Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...

, spiritualism

Spiritualism

Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...

, and aestheticism

Aestheticism

Aestheticism was a 19th century European art movement that emphasized aesthetic values more than socio-political themes for literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design...

--united against imperialism

Imperialism

Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...

 and forged strong bonds with colonized

Colonialism

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

 subjects and cultures." Gandhi traces the social networks of activists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries connecting Edward Carpenter

Edward Carpenter

Edward Carpenter was an English socialist poet, socialist philosopher, anthologist, and early gay activist....

 with M.K. Gandhi and Mirra Alfassa

Mirra Alfassa

-Early life:Mirra Alfassa was born in Paris in 1878, of a Turkish Jewish father, Maurice, and an Egyptian Jewish mother, Mathilde. She had an elder brother named Matteo. The family migrated to France the year before she was born. For the first eight years of her life she lived at 62 boulevard...

 with Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo , born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose , was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders, before developing his own vision of human progress...

.

Through this work, Gandhi became noted for proposing a "conceptual model of postcolonial engagement" surrounding ethical premises of hospitality and "xenophilia", and for bringing for the first time a queer perspective to Postcolonial Theory.

Published books

• Blake, Ann; Leela Gandhi; and Sue Thomas. England Through Colonial Eyes in Twentieth-Century Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan (August 18, 2001). ISBN 0-333-73744-X.
• Ezekiel, Nissim; Leela Gandhi; and John Thierne. Collected Poems (Oxford India Paperbacks). Oxford University Press, USA; 2 edition (December 13, 2005) ISBN 0-19-567249-6
• Gandhi, Leela. Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction. Columbia University Press:1998 ISBN 0-231-11273-4.
• Gandhi, Leela. Affective Communities: Anticolonial Thought, Fin-de-Siècle Radicalism, and the Politics of Friendship (Politics, History, and Culture). Duke University Press (January 2006) ISBN 0-8223-3715-0.
• Gandhi, Leela. Measures of home: Poems. Distributed by Orient Longman (2000) ISBN 81-7530-023-X.