Ulka Anjaria

Ulka Anjaria is a Professor of English and Barbara Mandel Professor of Humanities at Brandeis University, serving as Director of the Mandel Center for the Humanities. She holds a PhD from Stanford University, alongside an MA from Stanford and a BA from Harvard. Her research focuses on South Asian literatures and film, postcolonial theory, and the global novel. Anjaria has authored several acclaimed books, including Understanding Bollywood: The Grammar of Hindi Cinema (2021) and Reading India Now: Contemporary Formations in Literature and Popular Culture (2019). Her work interrogates the intersections of culture, politics, and aesthetics in Indian contexts.

Her scholarly contributions span articles on topics like feminist writing in India, Bollywood’s cinematic grammar, and postcolonial realism. Awards include the 2025 René Wellek Prize for her co-edited Oxford Handbook of Modern Indian Literatures. Anjaria leads initiatives in humanities education, including grants to re-envision the role of humanities centers and address anti-Blackness in literary studies. She chairs the Interdepartmental Program in South Asian Studies at Brandeis, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration.