Swati Arora

Dr. Swati Arora is a Senior Lecturer in Performance and Global South Studies at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), part of the School of English and Drama. Previously, she held roles at King’s College London and Mellon Fellowships at the Centre for Humanities Research and Women’s and Gender Studies Department at University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa, where she remains a Research Fellow. She co-convened the Performances in Public Spaces working group of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR).

Education: BA, MA, PhD (degrees unspecified), Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Her research focuses on minoritarian performance, feminist theory, and postcolonial urbanism, interrogating how artistic practices challenge colonial and imperial legacies. Current projects explore visual art and performance in postcolonial Delhi’s urbanization and ecological crises.

Teaching spans undergraduate modules like Power Plays and Race and Racism in Performance, and postgraduate courses on Performance, Activism, Social Justice. Awards include the Early Career Researcher Prize from the Theatre and Performance Research Association (UK) and shortlisting in QMUL Research Awards. Funding sources include Mellon Foundation, UK-India Education & Research Initiative, and DAAD.

Key publications include Pluriversal Conversations on Transnational Feminisms (2024), Injury and Intimacy (2022), and Studies in Theatre and Performance (2021). Supervision focuses on racialisation in puppetry, Black feminist aesthetics, and poetry-plantation linkages in Kerala.