Nirinjan Khalsa-Baker

Professor Nirinjan Kaur Khalsa-Baker, Ph.D. has served as Clinical Professor of Jain and Sikh Studies (2015-2018) and Acting Director Graduate Yoga Studies (2019-2020). Dr. Khalsa-Baker's research, teaching, and publications use a decolonial lens to explore diversity in Sikh pedagogy and praxis and the ways in which Sikh wisdom, its mystical and embodied nature, cultivate an ethic of care, service, and sustainability in daily life. Dr. Khalsa-Baker currently serves as Faculty Advisor to LMU's Sikh Student Association and Interfaith Council, as Co-Chair of the Sikh Studies Unit at the American Academy of Religion as well as its Western Region, as co-editor of the Monsoon Journal for the South Asian Studies Association and on the editorial board of Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory. For over twenty years, Nirinjan Khalsa-Baker has learned from 13th generation memory bearer of Sikh devotional music (Gurbani Kirtan) Bhai Baldeep Singh, who honored her as the first female exponent of the Sikh drumming tradition (Amritsari baaj). As a Fulbright Fellow she traveled throughout Northern India exploring both historic and modern Sikh devotional music with particular attention paid to the ideological debates and identity politics surrounding its pedagogy and history.