Shilpa Raval

Shilpa Raval

Shilpa Raval was born in India, raised in New Jersey, and was an honors graduate of Drew University in 1991. In the process of acquiring her Ph.D. at Brown she fashioned a superb dissertation on gender, language, and sexuality in Ovid's Metamorphoses, which promised a brilliant future and original contributions to the field of gender studies. She was two years at the University of Missouri, 1998-2000 before moving on to Yale, where she was an energetic teacher, and publisher on many aspects of the portrayal of women from Andromache to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Her colleagues in Columbia and New Haven remember an irreplaceable teacher and scholar, her students recall a generous friend with a million watt smile that dimmed only after an heroic bout with cancer ended her life at 34 in May of 2004.

— Ward Briggs