Writer, broadcaster, and researcher, Dr. Aarathi Prasad, discusses “Silk: A World History.” In a gorgeous history that spans continents and millennia, Aarathi weaves together the complex story of the queen of fabrics. Through the scientists who have studied silk, and the biology of the animals from which it has been drawn, she explores the global, natural, and cultural history (and future) of a unique material that has fascinated the world for thousands of years.
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Born in London to an Indian mother who wore only silk saris and a Caribbean father who loved the natural world, Dr. Aarathi Prasad was educated in the West Indies and the UK. After completing a PhD in molecular genetics from Imperial College London, she later trained in bioarchaeology. Dr. Prasad is an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London’s Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, and part of an international team excavating and analyzing ancient DNA from funerary sites in Spain, Rome, and Pompeii. She is the author of two books published in the UK, In the Bonesetter’s Waiting Room: Travels Through Indian Medicine and Like a Virgin: How Science Is Redesigning the Rules of Sex.
Moderated by Parvathy Bavishi.
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