headshot of Priyanjali Sen, seen against a background of leabes and wearing a yellow shirt dotted with small blue flowers
Faculty

Priyanjali Sen was born and raised in India where she earned a B.A. in English from St. Stephen’s College Delhi University, and an M.A. in Mass Communication from Jamia Millia Islamia University. She earned a second M.A. and Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, where she was also a Lecturer and Postdoctoral Fellow (2020 – 2022).

Her current book project engages with the history, literary poetics and cosmopolitan consciousness of Bengali cinema, and her most recent research at the National Film Archive of India was made possible by the Creative Research and Innovation Grant from the UArts President’s Fund for Excellence (2023). At NYU she was a recipient of the Jay Leyda Award for Academic Excellence, the Provost’s Global Research Initiative Grant, and the Corrigan Doctoral Fellowship. 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 received the citation “Outstanding Citizen of New York” from the City Council of New York (2009) for creative work and community building 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 Visiting Assistant Professor in Film and Media Studies, Priyanjali teaches courses in the History of Cinema, World Cinema, Bollywood, Color and Cinema, and Feminism and Media. Her research interests include: literature, film and transmedia storytelling; the politics and aesthetics of cinema from the global south; Indian/Bengali cinema; South Asian cultural studies; and Indian indigenous film and media.