On April 9, 2026, Dr. Anu Aneja delivered the 16th annual Women and Gender Studies Scholar’s Lecture, titled “Resonant Hearts: Feminist Theory and Rasa Aesthetics.”
Moving beyond dichotomies of mind/body dualisms, self-contained interiority, and the deprivileging of emotion in theories of cognition, feminist theory has explored embodied, vitalist, enactivist, externalist and affective approaches to imagine equitable futurities based on connectedness and relationality. Yet transnational conversations on these issues remain fragmented. By situating feminist theory and the Indic aesthetic theory of rasa (taste/ rapture) in conversation, this paper underscores the importance of mining cross-cultural conceptual regimes to contribute to a decolonial feminist theorizing on mind, embodiment and the politics of affect. Leaning on the concept of ‘resonant hearts’ (sahridya) and shared, ownerless emotions, I explore resonances between feminist and rasa theories to envisage a transnational rasa-infused feminist politics of affect.
Dr. Aneja is Professor and Director of Undergraduate Programs of Women and Gender Studies at George Mason University.
