Priyanjali Sen

Priyanjali Sen was born and raised in India where she earned a B.A. (Honors) degree in English from St. Stephen’s College Delhi University, and an M.A. degree in Mass Communication from Jamia Millia Islamia University. After relocating to New York City, she earned a second M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. She was also a Lecturer and Postdoctoral Fellow at NYU from 2020-22.

Her current book project engages with the history, literary poetics and cosmopolitan consciousness of Bengali cinema; and her publications have appeared in Bioscope: South Asian Screen Studies; Studies in South Asian Film and Media; Adaptation, Awards Culture, and the Value of Prestige (2017); and La famille au cinema: Regards juridiques et cinématographiques (2016). She has taught courses on Indian Cinema, Bollywood, Hollywood Adaptations, Global Adaptations: Literature, Film and Media Franchise Culture, Utopia/Dystopia: Cinematic Visions of the Future, International Film History, The City and Film, and Language of Film at NYU and Baruch College CUNY.

She was a recipient of the Corrigan Doctoral Fellowship (2009-13), the Provost’s Global Research Initiative Grant (2012), and the Jay Leyda Award for Academic Excellence (2020) at NYU. She also received the citation “Outstanding Citizen of New York” from the City Council of New York in 2009, for her creative work and building of community with the nonprofit organization Surati for Performing Arts, which has held programs at prestigious venues like the Kennedy Centre and Library of Congress in Washington D.C., the Indian Consulate and City Hall in New York, Alaska Performing Arts Centre, and Rutgers University in New Jersey.

As a Visiting Assistant Professor in Film and Media Studies at UArts, Priyanjali teaches core courses on the History of Narrative Cinema, and World Cinema, as well as elective modules pertaining to film aesthetics, society, culture and politics, especially from the global south.

Her research interests include: literature, film and transmedia storytelling; the politics and aesthetics of global cinema; Indian/Bengali cinema; South Asian cultural studies; and Indian indigenous film and media.