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NORTH AMERICAN Newsline MARCH 29, 2024 | The Indian Eye 37

SUNIL HARJANI his PhD in anthropology from Johns Hopkins University in 2020.
“I am thrilled to welcome Swayam Bagaria to the HDS faculty,” said
Magistrate to be the Illinois HDS Dean Marla F. Frederick. “Professor Bagaria is not only an emerging
scholar, but also a proven and appreciated teacher. His ethnographic per-
federal district court judge spective on lived religion today and his research on the relationship between
classical Hinduism and popular Hinduism in contemporary India will allow
Hindu Studies to better flourish at HDS and Harvard.”
“I am excited to join HDS at what seems like an inflection point in the
history of the School. Religion, even if just as a cluster of biases or as a set
of ethical constraints, has always been important for most of our endeav-
ours in the world but it was rarely acknowledged as such,” said Bagaria. “My
strength has always been my curiosity and receptivity to different disciplinary
frameworks and methods. I find that reframing a problem from multiple per-
spectives and understanding the trade-offs between them can break the rut
of being trapped in scholarly echo chambers. Practically, I try and achieve
this in my research collaborations but even more so in my teaching.”

UMA MENON
Author publishes her first

Children’s Book

he US Senate has confirmed Indian American federal Magistrate Judge
Sunil Harjani to be the federal district court judge on the Chicago-based
TNorthern District of Illinois. He becomes the first South Asian Ameri-
can to serve as a US district judge in the Northern District of Illinois.
With the Senate’s 53-46 vote Tuesday to confirm Harjani, he becomes
the first South Asian American to serve as a US district judge in the North-
ern District of Illinois. “We are pleased that the Senate has confirmed Judge
Sunil Harjani to serve as a District Court Judge for the Northern District of
Illinois Eastern Division,” US Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL),
Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and US Senator Tammy Duck-
worth (D-IL) stated.
“Judge Harjani was highly regarded by our screening committee and
brings strong qualifications and a wealth of courtroom experience—includ-
ing as a Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of Illinois since 2019—
that will strengthen our federal bench,” they wrote.
Harjani has been a United States Magistrate Judge for the Northern
District of Illinois since 2019. He is a resident of Joliet and Northwestern ma Menon, the young 20-year-old author and human rights advocate,
graduate. He previously served as an Assistant US Attorney and Deputy has published her first children’s book. My Mother’s Tongues, was pub-
Chief of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Section in the US Attorney’s Ulished by Candlewick Press in February 2024, and will be followed by
Office for the Northern District of Illinois from 2008 to 2019. Our Mothers’ Names in 2025. Her writing has been nominated thrice for the
He also practiced federal civil litigation as a senior counsel at the US Pushcart Prize and appeared in over three dozen different publications, in-
Securities & Exchange Commission from 2004 to 2008 and as an associate at cluding The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and The Progressive. Her
Jenner & Block LLP in Chicago from 2000 to 2001 and 2002 to 2004. debut poetry book, Hands for Language, was published by Mawenzi House in
2020 and shortlisted for the 2019 International Erbacce-Prize.
SWAYAM BAGARIA Besides writing, Menon is an advocate for issues such as educational ac-

Scholar appointed to teach cess, violence prevention, and immigration justice. She was a 2020-2021 En-
core Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project, advocating for intergen-
erational social justice and representation. She also served as the 2019-2020
Hindu Studies at Harvard Youth Fellow for the International Human Rights Art Festival (IHRAF),
where she collaborated with artists and activists across the world to advocate
for human rights and started and edited IHRAF’s first Anthology of Youth
cholar Swayam Bagaria has been Creativity on Human Rights & Social Justice.
named Assistant Professor of The narrative revolves around Sumi, whose mother possesses the ex-
SHindu Studies at Harvard Di- traordinary ability to seamlessly switch between Malayalam and English, a
vinity School with effect from January linguistic prowess that Sumi marvels at and wonders if it might be a super-
1, 2024. Bagaria was most recently a power. Through Sumi’s eyes, readers are taken on a delightful journey as
Postdoctoral Fellow in Hindu Studies the young protagonist recounts her mother’s migration from India and the
at HDS and was named to that posi- evolution of her bilingual abilities, now intertwined like fine cloth.
tion in 2022. Prior to his time at HDS,
Bagaria was a Postdoctoral Fellow at To read more about Indian diaspora and Global Indians, log on to and follow
the University of Virginia in the Col- our website www.TheIndianEYE.com
lege Fellows Program. He had received

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