Manisha Basu

Manisha Basu is an Associate Professor of English and holds affiliations with the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory and the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois. She directs the English Department's graduate studies and specializes in postcolonial theory, nationalism, secularism, and global literary studies. Her research bridges African and South Asian literatures with critical analyses of language, imperialism, and cultural politics.

Education: Ph.D. in English from the University of Pittsburgh.

Research Interests: Postcolonial literatures, secularism's global intersections, nationalism through philological lenses, and the entanglements of language and power in colonial/postcolonial contexts. Her work often examines how discourses of hunger, urbanization, and religious identity shape cultural narratives.

Publications focus on Victorian literature reinterpretations, global hunger discourses, and South Asian nationalism. Notable works include The Rhetoric of Hindu India (2016) analyzing linguistic nationalism and The Aesthetics and Politics of Global Hunger (2018), a co-edited volume.

No scientific awards are explicitly listed. Teaching includes courses on postcolonial literature, critical theory, and modern African fiction.

She leads initiatives within interdisciplinary centers but no lab-specific details are provided.