Aakanksha Virkar

Dr Aakanksha Virkar is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton’s School of Humanities and Social Science, with affiliations to the Centre for Design History. She holds a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (2024–2025) for her project on T.S. Eliot and Beethoven. Previously, she served as a Commonwealth Scholar and Nehru Trust Scholar at the University of Cambridge, where she earned her MA and PhD (2010). Her research focuses on modern literature (1870–1945), particularly intersections between literature, philosophy, music, and visual culture.

Her current work explores T.S. Eliot’s engagement with Beethoven and fascist cultural ideology, as seen in her 2024 Journal of Modern Literature article. She is co-authoring a monograph with Prof. Daniel Chua (HKU) on Eliot and Beethoven. She also serves on the Board of the International T.S. Eliot Society and UKRI’s Interdisciplinary Assessment College.

Education:

• PhD in Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, University of Sussex (2010)
• MA English Literature, University of Cambridge (2006)
• BA English Literature, University of Cambridge (2002)
• BA English Literature, University of Bombay (2000)

Research Interests:

• T.S. Eliot’s interdisciplinary aesthetics
• Beethoven’s cultural legacy
• Victorian mysticism (Hopkins)
• Literature and philosophy in modernism
• Music-literature crossovers
• Nineteenth-century cultural politics

Awards:

• British Academy Fellowship
• Commonwealth Scholarship
• Nehru Trust Scholarship
• Top 50 Article in Literature and Theology (2012)

Grants & Activities:

• Leading a £250k British Academy project (2024–2025)
• Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, University of London (2023–2026)
• Peer reviewer for AHRC grants
• Contributor to BBC Radio 3’s Beethoven Unleashed series

Labs/Teams: Collaborates with musicologists (e.g., Prof. Daniel Chua) and interdisciplinary cultural studies networks.