Lisa Mitchell

Lisa Mitchell is a Professor of anthropology and history in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University and has taught at institutions including Queens College (CUNY), Bowdoin College, and the University of Notre Dame. Her research focuses on Indian democracy, political practices, urban spaces, and transnational intellectual history, with a geographic focus on Telugu-speaking regions of South India. She has authored two influential books, including Hailing the State: Indian Democracy between Elections (2023), and received prestigious awards such as the Edward Cameron Dimock, Jr. Prize and the Lindback Award for Teaching.

Her research interests include the genealogies of Indian democracy, public space and political protest, and the interplay between language and socio-political identity. She has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Wenner-Gren Foundation, and European Research Council, and has been a visiting scholar at institutions like the University of Cambridge and the Max Planck Institute.

Her work bridges disciplines, integrating anthropology, history, and urban studies to analyze how infrastructure, language, and cultural practices shape political dynamics. Recent projects explore the 'government job' in India and global intellectual histories of democracy.