Dr. Neha Khetrapal

Associate Professor and Associate Dean - International Collaborations

B.A. (University of Delhi);
M.A. (University of Allahabad);
Ph.D. (Macquarie University, Australia)

Neha Khetrapal examined language development in children with autism. After earning her PhD at Macquarie, she worked and lived in Singapore and Budapest. Through these years, she has gradually moved beyond her work on cognitive development and has become increasingly interested in other allied fields. She takes her inspiration from her passion for travelling. Presently, Neha is involved in developing two distinct research portfolios at JIBS. She is interested in the interaction of religion with various aspects of environmental humanities. Within this domain, Neha is currently involved with work that addresses questions of social and ecological import. Here, she is broadly interested in understanding whether traditions and religions afford imaginative possibilities for addressing the breakdown of human relations with the environment.  

 

Furthermore, Neha is also interested in the role of collective memory that is implicated in supporting transitions witnessed in post-conflict societies. Her recent research endeavor, within this domain, elucidates the aesthetics of commemorative practices, as gleaned from built styles. Here, she takes a cross-cultural approach to highlight how commemoration may take on different “visual” forms in the form of peace and war memorials. At JGU, Neha has taught courses on Spiritual Brain, Environmental Psychology and Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.

Publications

Journal Publications

  1. Khetrapal, N. (2024). International and National Heritagization of Religion in Asia. In: Saloul, I., Baillie, B. (Eds.), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-61493-5_1-1

  2. Khetrapal, N. (2023). Olfactorizing religious education. Teaching Theology & Religion. https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12642
  3. Khetrapal, N. (2023). Khadi Marigolds for the Martyrs of Jallianwala Bagh (India). Peace Review, 1-13.
    https://doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2023.2188114
  4. Khetrapal, N. (2023). Materialisation of existential aesthetics. INMS Working Paper Series of the Centre for Memory Studies, IIT Madras, India. https://www.indiannetworkformemorystudies.com/wps/materialisation-of-existential-aesthetics-neha-khetrapal/
  5. Neha Khetrapal & Kritika Kamarkar (2022): Material forms of memorialisation in pre and post-independent India, National Identities  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14608944.2022.2125942
  6. Khetrapal, N., & Bhatia, D. (2022) Our brightly‐lit future: Exploring the potential for astrotourism in Khajuraho (India). The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe canadienhttps://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12742
  7. Khetrapal, N., Pathak, N. (2021). Peace Profile: Maulana Wahiduddin Khan. Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 33(2): 319-321. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2021.1998865
  8. Khetrapal, N., Khera, G. (2021) Under the spell of SARS-CoV-2: A closer look at the sociopolitical dynamics. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 4369. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-021-00427-1
Grant Awards
  1. 2023 – Travel Grant by ‘Research England funded project, Beyond Imagination’ for the Book Launch of Dark Skies: Places, Practices, Communities (1st Edition | Routledge) at Lancaster.
  2. July 2023 – O.P. Jindal Global University Research Grant, JGU/RGP/2023/008 for the Project, “New Ammunitions for the Future: Material Culture and Transitional Justice” | Duration 18 months
  3. 2023 – Workshop Grant in social ontology by the International Social Ontology Society for “Ontology of Peace: Reflections on Pluriversality” (500 USD)
  4. Scholarship (750 Swiss France) by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, Switzerland for ‘Climate, Land and Security’
  5. International Brain Research Organisation/Dana Foundation Brain Awareness (BAW) Grant (1250 USD) for Brain Awareness Week, 2022
  6. July 2022 – Sponsored by the Non-Anthropocentric Cultural Subjectivity Project, as a part of an Excellence Research Initiative at the University of Warsaw, Poland.
Book Chapter
  1. Khetrapal, N. (2023). Nocturnal (dark) anthropology Spotlight on an ancient Indian civilisation. In Dunn, N., & Edensor, T. (Eds.). (2023). Dark Skies: Places, Practices, Communities (1st ed.). Routledge.  https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003408444
  2. Khetrapal, N. (2023). 102 Emotional language impairments in autism. In G. Schiewer, J. Altarriba & B. Ng (Ed.), Language and Emotion: An International Handbook (Volume 3, pp. 2092-2104). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110795486-038