DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS

Linguistic and Sociocultural Anthropology, race, youth, media, migration, semiotics, South Asian diaspora, Asian diasporas, United States. Joint appointment with Asian American Studies.

 

BIOGRAPHY

Shalini Shankar (she/her) is the Stanley G. Harris Professor in the Social Sciences and Professor of Anthropology and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University. Her ethnographic research focuses on language use, race, youth, generation, caste, media, and advertising in South Asian diasporas and Asian America. She is a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow and has received research funding from NSF, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, SSRC, and the Spencer Foundation. 

Shankar is the author of Beeline: What Spelling Bees Reveal about Generation Z’s New Path to Success (Basic Books, 2019); Advertising Diversity: Ad Agencies and the Creation of Asian American Consumers (Duke UP, 2015); and Desi land: Teen Culture, Class, and Success in Silicon Valley (Duke UP, 2008). She has been interviewed by a wide range of media outlets and published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and the LA Times.

Shankar has several research projects in progress. For the Journal of Asian American Studies, she is co-editing an issue on caste with Dr. Bilal Nasir, Pomona College, for which they are also co-authoring an introduction. She is completing two articles: one on language, gender, and caste in the Netflix series Never Have I Ever and another analyzing the shows Indian Matchmaker and Muslim Matchmaker about language and caste ideologies. Additionally, she is developing a project on Gen Z girls’ wellness and self-care, aiming to understand major shifts in gender identity and well-being.

 

BOOKS

2019. Beeline: What Spelling Bees Reveal about Generation Z’s New Path to Success (New York: Basic Books/ Hachette).

2017. Language and Materiality: Theoretical and Ethnographic Explorations (co-edited w/ Jillian Cavanaugh). Cambridge University Press. 

2015. Advertising Diversity: Producing Language and Ethnicity in American Advertising. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 

2008    Desi Land: Teen Culture, Class, and Success in Silicon Valley. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

 

REFEREE JOURNAL ARTICLES

forthcoming     “Critical Caste Studies: Introduction.” Co-author Bilal Nasir. Journal of Asian American Studies Special Issue. Expected Fall 2026.

forthcoming     “Caste and Language in South Asian American Media.” Journal of Asian American Studies Special Issue. Expected Fall 2026.

2023    “Language and Race: Settler Colonial Consequences and Epistemic Disruptions.” Annual Review of Anthropology 52: 381-397.

2020       “Nothing Sells Like Whiteness: Racial Ontologics in American Advertising.” American Anthropologist 122(1): 112-119.

2016 “Coming in First: Sound and Embodiment in Spelling Bees” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 26(2): 1-22.

2014      “Producing Authenticity in Global Capitalism: Language, Materiality, and Value.” Co-author Jillian Cavanaugh. American Anthropologist 116(1): 1-14.

2013      “Affect and Sport in Asian American Advertising.” South Asian Popular Culture11(3): 231- 242.

2013      “Racial Naturalization, Advertising, and Model Consumers for a New Millennium.” Journal of Asian American Studies 16(2): 159-188.

2012      “Creating Model Consumers: Producing Ethnicity, Race, and Class in Asian American Advertising. American Ethnologist 39(3): 578-591.

2012      “Language and Materiality in Global Capitalism.” Co-Author Jillian Cavanaugh. Annual Review of Anthropology 41:355–369.

2011      “Style and Language Use among Youth of the New Immigration: Formations of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class in Everyday Practice.” Identities 18:646-671.

2011      “Asian American Youth Language Use: Perspectives Across Schools and Communities.” Review of Research in Education, Special Issue: “Youth Cultures, Language, and Literacy” 35: 1-28.

2008     “Speaking like a Model Minority: ‘FOB’ Styles, Gender, and Racial Meanings among Desi Teens in Silicon Valley.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 18(2): 268-289.

2006     “Metaconsumptive Practices and the Circulation of Objectifications.” Journal of Material Culture 11(3): 293-317.

2004     “Reel to Real: Desi Teens' Linguistic Engagements with Bollywood.” Pragmatics14(2-3): 317-335. Reprinted in Beyond Yellow English: Toward a Linguistic Anthropology of Asian Pacific America, Angela Reyes and Adrienne Lo, eds. Pp. 309-324. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

 

SELECT BOOK CHAPTERS AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS

2025    “Nothing Sells Like Whiteness: White Supremacy in American Advertising.” In The Anthropology of White Supremacy, eds. Aisha Beliso-Jesús, Jemima Pierre, and Junaid Rana. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 

2017    “Linguistic Anthropology in 2016: Now What?” American Anthropologist. 119(2):319-332.

2017    “Spelling Materially: Words, Brand, and Circulation.” In Language Materiality: Theoretical and Ethnographic Explorations, J. Cavanaugh and S. Shankar, eds. Pages 87-104. Cambridge University Press. 

 2016      “Reflections on Professional Sports and Immigrant Life.” In Asian American Sporting Cultures, Stanley Thangaraj, Constancio Arnoldo, and Christina Chin, eds. NYU Press.

 2014      “Heritage Language Use, Asian and Pacific Islander American.”  Sage Encyclopedia of Asian Americans. Mary Yu Danico, Ed.

 2013   "Youth Culture." Oxford Bibliographies in Anthropology. Ed. JohnJackson. New York: Oxford University Press.

http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0081.xml.

 

FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, AND AWARDS

2025    Weinberg Community Builder Teaching Award, Northwestern University.

2024    CRES (Council for Racial and Ethnic Studies) Fellowship, Northwestern University.

2017    John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow.

2014    Public Voices/OpEd Project Fellow, Northwestern University.

2013    The Business of Spelling: Branded Bees, Neoliberal Socialization, and Racialized Stereotypes. National Science Foundation Cultural Anthropology Research Grant (BCS-1323769).

2013    The Business of Spelling: Branded Bees, Neoliberal Socialization, and Racialized Stereotypes. The Wenner-Gren Foundation, Post-Ph.D. Research Grant.

2009    Advertising Agency: Producing Racial Imagery of Asian Americans. National Science Foundation Cultural Anthropology Research Grant (BCS 0924472).

 

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

Association for American Studies

Association for Asian American Studies