معرفی
Samhita Sunya is an Associate Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures (MESALC) at the University of Virginia, College of Arts and Sciences. She specializes in world film history, feminist historiography, sound studies, and transregional media circulation across South and West Asia and the Indian Ocean. She also serves as Director of Graduate Studies in MESALC and is active in the Modern Language Association's Screen Arts and Culture forum.
Education:
- Ph.D., Rice University, 2014
- Graduate Certificate in the Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality, Rice University, 2014
- Certificate in Museum Studies, Northwestern University, 2023
Her research focuses on the global dimensions of Hindi cinema, particularly during the Cold War era, as explored in her book Sirens of Modernity: World Cinema via Bombay (2022). She investigates informal media distribution, location shooting, espionage genres, and the intersections of audio-visual media with literary forms. Her creative work includes a cultural history of the tabletop game carrom, based on oral histories and short stories. She teaches courses on film festivals, cinephilia, adaptation, genre, and sound studies, and has co-taught interdisciplinary seminars.
Her recent publications span topics such as Shakespeare on film, One Thousand and One Nights in global cinema, media piracy in the Gulf, and the sonic ecologies of noise in India. The articles reflect a strong engagement with transregional film history, adaptation, curatorial practice, and postcolonial media studies, often bridging South Asia, the Middle East, and the Global South.
Scientific Awards:
- Mellon Humanities Fellowship (2018–2019)
- Spring 2018 Residence at Yale University
She is actively involved in advising and academic programming, serving as Director of Programming for the Shenandoah Film Collaborative and Guest Programmer for the Virginia Film Festival. Her curatorial projects include themed film series such as "Letters of Love" and "On Love: Of Cities, of Cinema." She has also co-edited special issues of Film History and contributed to public scholarship through Jadaliyya and other platforms.
Her recent Certificate in Museum Studies has informed her curatorial and public humanities work, reinforcing her commitment to community engagement and interdisciplinary scholarship beyond the traditional academic sphere.
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