Davesh Soneji is a social historian working in the field of performing arts, addressing issues of gender, class, and caste especially in the colonial context. He teaches in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His work focuses on religion and the performing arts in South India His best known work is Unfinished Gestures: Devadāsīs, Memory, and Modernity in South India; it was awarded the 2013 Bernard S. Cohn Book Prize from The Association for Asian Studies (AAS).