Sruti Bala is Associate Professor at the Dept. of Theatre Studies of the University of Amsterdam and is affiliated to the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis, where she also serves as a member of the advisory board.
Sruti's research interests are at the intersections of performance and politics, which has taken shape in specific research projects on nonviolent protest, participatory art, artistic activism, feminist and postcolonial/decolonial theories and translation.
She is an active member of the collective International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India).
Sruti studies Indian percussion (Tabla) with Niti Ranjan Biswas.
Handbook of Gender Studies in the Dutch Caribbean (co-edited with Rose Mary Allen), Brill Publishers, 2024
Rose Mary Allen and Sruti Bala, 'Editors' introduction' (open access)
Courses taught in 2023-24
Key Concepts and Methodologies in Theatre and Performance Studies (MA)
Culture Wars: Introducing Culture and Social Justice (BA)
Florence Evans: Art, Activism, and Memory in Buenos Aires, 1995-2003 (co-promoter: Dr. Boris Noordenbos)
Emily Shin-Jie Lee: Artist-in-Residencies: Dwelling Spaces of Art and Politics (promoter: Prof. Dr. Margriet Schavemaker)
Ariane Gros: From the 19th Century August to the Contemporary Joker: The Cultural Figure of the Clown and its Political Significance in Arts, Media and Public Space(s) (co-promoters: Prof. Dr. Peter Marx and Prof. Dr. Stephen Packard, University of Cologne)
Kim Darbouze: Weaving the ecological and embodied ties of slavery & colonialism extracted across the Atlantic (co-promoter: Dr. Esther Captain, KITLV)