Faculty

Profile

Sumita S. Chakravarty has a Ph.D. in Communications from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and a Ph.D. in English from Lucknow University, India. She served as associate dean in Media Studies from 2011-2014, and as the founding chair of Culture and Media at Lang College from 2000-2008. She is the author of National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, 1947-1987 (U of Texas Press 1993; Oxford U Press 1996); The Enemy Within (editor, 2000) and several articles in journals and anthologies, including The Routledge Companion to Gender and Cinema (2016) and most recently, “Mapping Migration” in Uncertain Archives (MIT Press, 2020). Her research interests include media theory, media and globalization, film and national identity, digital cultures, and the history and philosophy of media technologies. She is currently working on a book on the intersections of media and migration. She leads the online platform Media+Migration Lab, which cultivates interdisciplinary projects examining the entanglements between immigration and its mediation. This includes its ongoing foundational project, Migration Mapping, a living digital archive for media and migration.

Sumita Chakravarty was the recipient of the Distinguished University Teaching Award at the New School in 2018. She has also established an endowed fellowship in her parents' memory for a rising MA student in digital media studies, The Bishwanath and Sandhya Sinha Memorial Endowed Fellowship.

Degrees Held

PhD, Communications, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign;
PhD, English, Lucknow University, India;
BA, Lucknow University, India

Professional Affiliation

• Association for Cultural Studies
• International Communication Association
• Society for Cinema and Media Studies

Recent Publications

• "Gender in Transit: Framing the (new) Cinema of Migration" in The Routledge Companion to Cinema and Gender, Routledge 2016.
• "Fragmenting the Nation: Images of Terrorism in Indian Popular Cinema" in Terrorism, Media, Liberation. 2005.
• "Communications and Community in the Global Era: Revisiting Raymond Williams" in Crossroads in Cultural Studies conference. 2004.
• "The Erotics of History: Gender and Transgression in New Asian Cinemas" in Rethinking Third World Cinema. 2003.

Research Interests

Migration and media, borders, transnational cinema, race and ethnicity, global cultural studies, media history, critical theory, new technologies and their impact

Awards And Honors

• 2014 Provost's Office Faculty Research Fund Award
• 2012 New School Faculty Development Grant
• 2011 New School Faculty Development Grant