Research

I specialise, broadly, in 20th and 21st century literatures. My past research on South Asian literature and visual culture focused on urban writings and states of emergency. My first book, based on my doctoral research, Literatures of the Indian Emergency (1975-77): Tropes of Exception, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press, and scheduled for publication in 2026 in the “Oxford English Monographs” series. My MPhil work, completed at JNU, examined the construction of time in contemporary urban writing on the city of Delhi. During this period, I also extensively researched speculative fiction in literature and visual culture.

Besides my forthcoming monograph, my academic writing has appeared in the Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Oxford Research in English, Queen’s Political Review, the Oxford Handbook of Modern Indian Literatures, Contemporary Literature, and the open educational resource hub Writers Make Worlds, among others.

My new work on postcolonial environments and speculative fiction extends the different lines of enquiry seen in my previous research by exploring how literature facilitates the visualisation of sustainable decolonial futures as a means to address the climate crisis in a way that is cognizant of the impact of new imperial regimes around the world. Based on related collaborative work in the research network I co-founded—The Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network—I have co-edited a special issue on "The Postcolonial Anthropocene: Contemporaries in Crisis," forthcoming soon.

See below for links to selected pieces.