Author & Coach at Bad Law Professor ℠
JD, UC Berkeley Law; MA, NYU Tisch Arts; Ph.D. ASU
Former Professor of Law and Legal Studies
(CUNY, Cal State Monterey Bay, Southwestern Law School)
Bio & C.V.
Click to access C.V. (11/2021)
Click to access CSUMB Faculty Website
Bio:
Dr. Roopa Bala Singh is a fourth-generation attorney focusing on property law. Roopa is a founding legal scholar of Critical Yoga Theory, which bridges studies of yoga, race, and the law. She is currently the Assistant Professor of Law and Civic Engagement at CSU Monterey Bay, where she teaches law, race, and gender. Her recent UC Press article traces yoga as racial property through U.S. popular music history. Roopa is a licensed attorney, with a law degree from UC Berkeley, a Masters in Cinema Studies from NYU, and a Ph.D. in Justice and Social Inquiry from ASU. Roopa’s nationwide panel project (SAAPYA: South Asian American Perspectives on Yoga, 2013-2016) was the first public discourse site on race and cultural appropriation in yoga. As a result of this groundbreaking work, Roopa was appointed as the first South Asian American advisor to Yoga Alliance and gave the keynote at UC Berkeley’s Race and Yoga Conference. Commitments to anti-racist liberation have been a central part of Roopa’s lifelong career in social justice and prison law. Roopa is currently at work on her first book, "One Breath at a Time: Yoga and U.S. Law."
Select Publications & Presentations
October 31, 2021
Stanford University Medical School
October 9, 2021
University of Denver, Sturm College of Law
Forthcoming, December 2021
Bloomsbury Academic Press
Sermon and Guided Meditation: Yoga as Property, Stanford University Medical School, Contemplation by Design Summit, Stanford Memorial Church, October 31, 2021.
Paper: Yoga As Property: Mapping A Critical Geography of Yoga in the Public Domain, Panel on Critical Perspectives on Theory and Jurisprudence; Resistance and Transformation: Mapping Critical Geographies and Alternative Possibilities in Legal Scholarship and Praxis for the Next Twenty-Five Years, LatCrit XXI Biennial Conference, University of Denver, Sturm College of Law (October 9, 2021).
Encyclopedia Entry: An Introduction to Critical Yoga Studies and the Law: Yoga, Wellness, and Contemporary Spirituality. Bloomsbury Religion in North America. (Bloomsbury Academic, forthcoming December, 2021).