Shuhita Bhattacharjee

Shuhita Bhattacharjee is Assistant Professor of English Literature and Gender & Sexuality Studies in the Department of Liberal Arts and an Affiliated Professor in the Department of Design at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, where she has held academic appointments since 2018. Previously she served as Assistant Professor at Presidency University, Kolkata (2013–2018) and as Lecturer/Adjunct faculty at the University of Iowa and HMM College.

Education:

• PhD English Literature, University of Iowa, USA (2015)
• MPhil, MA, BA English Literature, Jadavpur University, India (2008, 2006, 2004)

Her research ranges across Victorian literature and culture, post-secular theory, religion and secularism, gender and queer studies, postcolonial studies, graphic novels, diaspora cultural production, thing theory, and heritage studies. She interrogates the intersections of faith, gender, empire, and material culture, particularly through fin-de-siècle British and Anglo-Indian fiction.

Her publications map a trajectory from Victorian gothic and mesmerism to contemporary South Asian diasporic cinema and web-series, with recurring attention to gendered violence, post-secular identities, and subaltern humor. A second monograph on Colonial Idols in British and Anglo-Indian Literature is forthcoming from Routledge, extending her inquiry into the non-human agency of colonial religious objects.

Scientific Awards & Fellowships:

• Charles Wallace Grant for International Archival Research (2020)
• Marcus Bach Fellowship (2015)
• Frederick P. W. McDowell Dissertation Award (2014)
• Robert L. Platzman Fellowship, University of Chicago (2013)
• Stanley Award for International Research, University of Iowa (2013)
• Summer Dissertation Fellowship, University of Iowa (2013)
• AAUW Fellowship Alternate (2014)

She currently leads two ICSSR-funded projects on adolescent sexuality education through picture books and on queer dating-app violence in India, and heads the South Asia chapter of the UKRI AHRC-funded Nineteenth-Century Diversities Research Network (NCDRN). She founded the Public Humanities Initiative (PHI) at IIT Hyderabad to foster socially-engaged research across disciplines.

Beyond academia, Bhattacharjee has extensive social-sector experience on HIV and violence against women, sex education, and anti-sexual harassment policy, informing her gender-sensitisation workshops and classroom praxis.