Leela Prasad's primary interests are in the anthropology of ethics, the theory and practice of Hinduism, and religion and modernity. Her work examines the lived, expressive dimensions of ethics in Hindu and other Indic contexts through various lenses: narrative, folklore, gender, and diaspora, for example. Her ethnographic book Poetics of Conduct: Narrative and Moral Being in a South Indian Town (Columbia University Press, 2007) explores how ethical discourses and self-formation can be understood through a study of oral narrative, performance, vernacular material practices ranging from architecture to foodways, and the poetics of everyday language. (This book was awarded the “Best First Book in the History of Religions Prize” by the American Academy of Religion in 2007.)
She is currently working on two book projects.