Department of English

Ulka Anjaria

Research Interests

South Asian literatures and film; postcolonial literature and theory; the global novel; interdisciplinary approaches; literary theory.

Books

The Oxford Handbook of Modern Indian Literatures (co-edited with Anjali Nerlekar). Oxford University Press, 2024. 

Winner of the 2025 René Wellek Prize for Best Edited Essay Collection by the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA).

Understanding Bollywood: The Grammar of Hindi Cinema. Routledge, 2021.

Reading India Now: Contemporary Formations in Literature and Popular Culture. Temple University Press, 2019; paperback edition, 2024.

A History of the Indian Novel in English. Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Realism in the 20th-Century Indian Novel: Colonial Difference and Literary Form. Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Selected Scholarly Articles

• "Feminism and Progressive Writing in Twentieth-Century India," The Political Uses of Literature: Global Perspectives and Theoretical Approaches, 1920-2020 (eds. Benjamin Kohlmann and Ivana Perica), Bloomsbury, 2024.
• "Reema Kagti and the Ethics of Surprise," Women Filmmakers in Contemporary Hindi Cinema (ed. Aysha Iqbal), Springer, 2023.
• "Realism in the Colony," Landscapes of Realism: Rethinking Literary Realism in Comparative Perspectives, volume II (eds. Svend Erik Larsen, Steen Bille Jørgensen and Margaret R. Higonnet), John Benjamins, 2022.
• "'I Am Not Gandhi': Kanthapura and the Problem of Allegory." Reading India in a Transnational Era: The Works of Raja Rao (eds. Rumina Sethi and Letizia Alterno), Routledge, 2022.
• Introduction to a special section of South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 43(2), “Mazaa: Rethinking Fun, Pleasure and Play in South Asia,” guest edited by Ulka Anjaria and Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria, 2020.
• “Queering the Indian Novel.” Wasafiri 34.2 (2019): 26-32.
• “Global Pakistan in the Wake of 9/11.” The Routledge Companion to Pakistani Anglophone Writing. Eds. Aroosa Kanwal and Saiyma Aslam. London: Routledge, 2018. 49-57.
• "Amitabh Bachchan in Deewaar." Close Up: Great Cinematic Performances, Vol. 2 (International). Eds. Murray Pomerance and Kyle Stevens. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018.
• "21st-Century Realism." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature. July 2017.
• "Madhur Bhandarkar and the New Bollywood Social." Behind the Scenes: Contemporary Bollywood Directions and Their Cinema. Eds. Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan and Vimal Mohan John. New Delhi: Sage, 2017. 272-287.
• "The Realist Impulse and the Future of Postcoloniality." NOVEL: A Forum in Fiction, 49.2(2016): 278-294.
• "Introduction: Literary Pasts, Presents, and Futures." A History of the Indian Novel in English. Ed. Ulka Anjaria. Cambridge University Press, 2015. 1-30.
• "Chetan Bhagat and the New Provincialism." American Book Review, September-October (2015): 6-22.
• "Realist Hieroglyphics: Aravind Adiga and the New Social Novel." Modern Fiction Studies, 61.1(Spring 2015): 112-135.
• "The Fractured Spaces of Entrepreneurialism in Post-Liberalization India" (co-authored with Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria). Enterprise Culture in Neoliberal India: Studies of Youth, Class, Work and Media. Ed. Nandini Gooptu. London: Routledge, 2013. 190-205.
• "Slumdog Millionaire and Epistemologies of the City" (co-authored with Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria). The Slumdog Phenomenon: A Critical Anthology. Ed. Ajay Gehlawat. London: Anthem, 2013. 53-68.
• "'Relationships Which Have No Name:' Family and Sexuality in 1970s Popular Film." Journal of South Asian Popular Culture 12.1(2012): 23-35.
• "'Why Don't You Speak?': The Narrative Politics of Silence in Three South Asian Novels." Colonialism, Modernity and Literature: A View From India. Ed. Satya P. Mohanty. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011. 153-170.
• "Staging Realism and the Ambivalence of Nationalism in the Colonial Novel." NOVEL: A Forum for Fiction. 44.2(2011): 186-207.''
• "Text, Genre, Society: Hindi Youth Films and Postcolonial Desire" (co-authored with Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria). Journal of South Asian Popular Culture, 6.2 (2008): 125-140.
• "On Beauty and Being Postcolonial: Aesthetics and form in Zadie Smith." Zadie Smith: Critical Essays. Ed., Tracey Lorraine Walters. New York: Peter Lang, 2008.
• "Satire, Literary Realism, and the Indian State: Six Acres and a Third and Raag Darbari." Economic and Political Weekly, 41.46(2006): 4795-4800.

Articles for a General Readership

• "Aravind Adiga: A Critical Biography," Indian Writing in English Online, University of Hyderabad, 2023.
• "Femme Fatale Talks Back: Meenu Gaur on Feminist Filmmaking," Public Books, May 5, 2022.
• "The Queerness of Fandom in Bollywood," Tarshi.net, Nov. 1, 2021.
• "India's Fans and India's Future," Public Books, April 3, 2020.
• "Fifty years later, Shrilal Shukla's Raag Darbari is being reborn as modern Indian literature." Scroll, March 3, 2018.
• "The Goddess of Loss: Indian Literature in English After Arundhati Roy." Boston Review, Feb. 9, 2017.
• "Lady Lolita's Lover Shows Us There Can Be No Great Indian Novel Right Now." Scroll, Jan. 30, 2016.
• "English Vinglish." The Daily Star (Bangladesh), Aug.22, 2015.
• "Indian Fiction: Why the English vs. Bhasha Debate No Longer Makes Sense." Scroll, Aug. 15, 2015.
• "Amitav Ghosh and Aravind Adiga: Two Ways to Write English in India." Scroll, Aug. 9, 2015.
• "Reading Chetan Bhagat in Dhaka." Scroll, July 25, 2015.
• "'A True Lahori': Mohsin Hamid and the Problem of Place in Pakistani Fiction." Economic and Political Weekly, 48.25, 2013.

Recent Book Reviews

• Review of Love, War and Other Longings: Essays on Cinema in Pakistan by Vazira Zamindar and Asad Ali. Bioscope: South Asian Screen Studies, October 4, 2021.
• “Dystopian Realities.” Review of " Nacohus" by Purushottam Agrawal. The Book Review, May 14, 2019
• "Indian Queer Futures." Review of "Murder in Mahim" by Jerry Pinto and Mohanaswamy by Vasundhendra. Public Books, Feb. 2, 2018.
• "Great Aspirations." Review of "One Indian Girl" by Chetan Bhagat. Public Books, July 31, 2017.
• Review of "Planetary Modernisms: Provocations on Modernity Across Time" by Susan Stanford Friedman. Journal of the Society for Contemporary Thought and the Islamicate World. Oct. 11, 2016.
• "India's First Bollywood Film." Review of "Amar Akbar Anthony: Bollywood, Brotherhood, and the Nation" by William Elison, Christian Lee Novestzke, and Andy Rotman. Biblio: A Review of Books. 21.4 (April 2016).
• "Pakistan's Place in World Literature." Review of Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi's "Mirages of the Mind." Public Books, March 15, 2016.

Awards

• Mellon Foundation grant on behalf of Brandeis University for "Re-envisioning the Role of the Humanities Center in the 21st-Century University," 2022
• Provost's Teaching Innovation Grant for "Challenging Anti-Blackness in Literary Studies"
• Dean of Arts and Sciences Mentoring Award, 2021
• Mandel Faculty Grant in the Humanities, 2018
• ACLS/Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship, 2014
• Visiting Fellowship, Delhi University, 2014

Selected Courses Taught

• Indian Love Stories (ENG 152a)
• Bollywood (ENG 20a)
• 21st-Century Global Fiction: A Basic Course (ENG 32a)
• Decolonizing Fictions (ENG 167a)

Selected Podcast Appearances

• New Books Network for The Academic Life podcast series, "The Connected PhD."
• Recall This Book episode 80: "We are Not Digested: Rajiv Mohabir"
• OpenBook: An English Department Podcast