Assistant Professor
Biology and Performing Arts (Theatre)
vasudev.menon@ssla.edu.in
In my classroom, my fellow students and I become co-investigators of the living world. Together, we explore, integrate, discuss, challenge, fracture and develop ideas around how discourse and understanding in biology is shaped by cultural, historical, social and philosophical paradigms. The ultimate aim is to construct a fluid dialogical space where explanations in the sciences are not treated as static monolithic facts, existing in vacuum to be memorized, but need to be understood as being deeply human, perspectival, constantly evolving and entangled within webs of historical narratives. I am of the view that biological literacy, acquired this way, is transformative and simultaneously ushers in individual intellectual liberation and a more equitable, responsible society….and somewhere along the way you may encounter terms like critical thinking, inter/cross disciplinarity, problem solving, transferable skills, workforce competencies, employment readiness etc.
I have been teaching at SSLA in various capacities since 2015. I oversee the minor program in Integrated Biology and teach courses within the Integrated Biology and Performing Arts (Theatre) minors. Time and workload permitting, I offer the electives that explore contemporary issues in biology lensed through philosophy, history and politics among others.
My primary scholarly pursuit lies in the development of thought concerning immunity and immune response to diseases. I am building an argument, inspired by frameworks developed by contemporary philosophers like John Dupre, Anne Sophie-Meincke, Thomas Pradeau and others, that the twin ontologies of host and pathogen are co-constructed and are processual in nature. I expect that this will have a significant bearing not only on how biological individuality is understood but in a pragmatic sense, on how both prophylactic and therapeutic interventions to infectious diseases are imagined simultaneously at the levels of the individual and the populations.
Meanwhile, I am keen on investigating the motivations behind why the language of discourse of immunology is seasoned with metaphors and other linguistic devices that otherwise describe violence, conflict and war.
In addition to this, I hold a subsidiary interest in undergraduate Biology education, particularly in developing and delivering curricula that integrate teaching-learning modalities across the Life Science and humanitarian pursuits of History, Philosophy, Literature, Theatre and Film.
If you enjoy conversations in process metaphysics, public understanding of immunity or infectious diseases, teaching-learning biology, performing Shakespeare or south Indian cinema feel free to shoot line or two to vasudev.menon@ssla.edu.in or drop by the faculty office on the first floor of the Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts campus, Viman Nagar, Pune.
