Faculty
Dr. Pritha Chakrabarti
Assistant Professor
Alliance School of Film and Media Studies
Dr. Pritha Chakrabarti is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at Alliance School of Film and Media Studies, Alliance University. Before this, she was the founding faculty member and Program Director of Dadasaheb Phalke International Film School, MIT-WPU, Pune. Prior to that, she served as an Assistant Professor at the department of Media and Communication, MIT-WPU, at the School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences, Krea University, Andhra Pradesh, and at the Symbiosis Centre for Media and Communication, Pune. Chakrabarti has completed her doctoral degree in Cultural Studies from the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, and has over 6 years of industry experience in publishing, journalism, advertising, public relations and branding, in reputed organizations such as Thomson Reuters and The Times of India and with brands like Google, Apollo Hospitals, Tech Mahindra, Aurobindo Pharma, Amara Raja among others.
Her interdisciplinary research on ‘Politics of Screendance in Indian Cinema’ lies in the intersection of film studies, performance studies, and gender studies, and she has published in several journals and edited volumes of international repute. Her research area is South Asian cinema and popular culture, and she is particularly interested in questions of class, caste, gender, sexuality, nation and neoliberalism. Her work has been published in South Asian History and Culture, South Asian Popular Culture, Studies in South Asian Film & Media, Community Development Journal, and Screen. She has also contributed chapters in Popular Cinema in Bengal and the forthcoming edited volume on celebrity studies to be published by Bloomsbury. Chakrabarti has presented her work in several international conferences and forums and is a member of notable international organizations like Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Association for Asian Studies, Asian Cinema Studies Society, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies and the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies. She has been a recipient of CSDS-ICSSR research fellowship, the Pad.Ma Film Research Fellowship, NFAI film research fellowship and has been recognized as Best Faculty-Film Studies at the Edutainment 2024 Awards.
Besides these, Chakrabarti is also a writing and soft skills trainer, having conducted academic and creative writing workshops in institutions across the country, and having helped set up writing centers in at least two national universities as a teachers’ trainer and consultant. A trained classical dancer, and theatre artist registered with Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre, GOI, Chakrabarti is also a resource person for Creative Pedagogy for School Teachers under an initiative of Oxford University Press. Her interest lies in institution and curriculum building, besides engaging in teaching-learning innovations and academic research in cinema and critical pedagogy.
Book Chapter:
- Starring the 'Region': Redefining Cine-Politics in South India to be published in Mediated Cultures, Political discourses, and the Celebrity: Perspectives from India, ed. by Swapna Gopinath, Ramna Walia & Rutuja Deshmukh, Bloomsbury, as a part of their book series on Asian Celebrity and Fandom Studies. [Forthcoming]
- Death of the Social and Dominance of the Psyche: Examining the absence of dance in 1950s/60s popular Bengali melodrama to be published in Visual Politics of Bengali Cinema, ed. by Roshni Sengupta, Routledge. [Forthcoming]
- Performing the region: Sadhona Bose and the modern Bengali film dance published in Popular Cinema in Bengal: Genre, Stars and Public Culture. Eds. Madhuja Mukherjee and Kaustav Bakshi. Routledge. ISBN 9780367330828. January 7, 2020. pp 43-58.
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals:
- Familialization of the ‘deviant’: A hindrance to queer community building? in Special Issue of Community Development Journal, OUP, Issue March 2024. Can be accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/bsae013
- The Disavowal of Dance as Labour in Popular Hindi Cinema in Special Issue of Studies in South Asian Film and Media 11.2, Intellect Books, Ed. Rashmi Sawhney, pp.209-223, ISSN 1756-4921 (Print); ISSN 1756-493X (Online).The article can be accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1386/safm_00029_1
- Performing the region: Sadhona Bose and the modern Bengali film dance published in the international peer-reviewed Journal of South Asian History and Culture Vol. 8, Issue 2, 2017, Taylor and Francis, Routledge [ISSN:1947-2498 (Print), 1947-2501 (Online)].The article can be accessed at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2017.1304089
- Hoping against Hope: Walter Benjamin and the Politics of History published in Vol. 5, Issue 6 of Convergia [ISSN:2322-0651], January 2016.
Book Reviews
- Seeing Things: Spectral Materialities of Bombay Horror by Kartik Nair for Screen, OUP, Vol. 66 Issue 1. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjaf012
- Tollygunge to Tollywood: The Bengali Film Industry Reimagined by Anugyan Nag and Spandan Bhattacharya (2021), Special Issue, South Asian Popular Culture, Taylor and Francis, Routledge, Vol. 22, Issue 3. Forthcoming at https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2024.2459527
- Sirens of Modernity: World Cinema via Bombay, Samhita Sunya (2022) in Studies in South Asian Film & Media, Volume 16, Issue India–Europe Film Connections, Apr 2024, p. 121 – 124. Published July 31, 2024. The review can be accessed at:
https://doi.org/10.1386/safm_00084_5 - Bollywood’s New Woman: Liberalization, Liberation, and Contested Bodies, Megha Anwar and Anupama Chopra published in Vol. 13, No. 1 of Studies in South Asian Film and Media, pp. 63-66. January 2022. ISSN 1756-4921 (Print); ISSN 1756-493X (Online). The review can be accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1386/safm_00050_5
Other Research Publications:
- As part of a research documentation project, my co-authored work on "Improving Elementary Education in Maharashtra: The work of the state education quality cell" has been published by UNICEF (2009). The publication can be accessed here.
Other Publications:
- Published an article on “Challenging the Binary of Vocation and Profession: A Framework for New-Age Work Education” and a corresponding lesson plan in the Oxford Teach Newsletter, January 2024.
- Published an article on “Learning to Sift: Media Literacy in schools” and a corresponding lesson plan in the Oxford Teach Newsletter, September 2023.
- Published an article on “Learning to Look: A Case for Cineliteracy in the Classroom” and a corresponding lesson plan in the Oxford Teach Newsletter, August 2023.
- Published an article on “Chat GPT: Changing the way we teach?” and a corresponding lesson plan in the Oxford Teach Newsletter, June 2023.
•Published an article on “Rewarding Effort: Labour-Based Grading Contract” and a corresponding lesson plan in the Oxford Teach Newsletter, April 2023. - Published an article on “Building Supportive Culture in Classrooms” and a corresponding lesson plan in the Oxford Teach Newsletter, February 2023.
- Published an article on “Integrating Performing Arts in Classroom Pedagogy” and a corresponding lesson plan in the Oxford Teach Newsletter, May 2022.
