Fellowship received in 2013
Academic supervisor: Prof. Mana Kia
Current affiliation: Columbia University (NYC)
Anwesha Sengupta is a doctoral candidate at the Middle Eastern South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS) program at Columbia University in New York City. She is a visiting researcher at the Leiden Institute of Area Studies (LIAS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands. My research centers around the socio-cultural history of South Asia with a focus on early modern history and literary culture, translation, and circulation of texts. She is also interested in digital humanities and inclusive pedagogy. Her doctoral research broadly studies themes and motifs of Hindu-Muslim intersection in a corpus of 16th-17th century Avadhi and Persian narrative texts.
Before pursuing her doctoral education, she completed an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom (funded by the Felix Scholarship).
She completed an MA in History at Jadavpur University in Kolkata during which she won the Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (SYLFF) Fellowship (funded by Tokyo and Nippon foundation, Japan) for conducting research on her Masters’ thesis.
Academic achievements, social engagement initiatives:
Grants and Fellowships (Doctoral Research)
2024 AAS Travel Grant for attending the AAS 2025 conference
2024-25 SYLFF Research Grant 2024 for archival research in India
2024 Mellon Humanities International Travel Fellowship for archival research
2023-24 GSAS Dissertation Fellowship, Ph.D. program at MESAAS in Columbia University
2018-19 GSAS Dean’s Fellowship, Ph.D. program at MESAAS in Columbia University
Select Honors and Awards
2016 Amit Mishra Bursary from Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies at University of Oxford, UK for participation in Middle-Bengali Workshop at Sapientia University, Romania
2014 University-wide Felix Scholarship for pursuing M.Phil. in Modern South Asian Studies at the University of Oxford, UK
2013 JU-SYLFF Fellowship, Masters’ level, jointly awarded by Jadavpur University, India and Tokyo and Nippon Foundation, Japan
2012 Best Female All-Rounder Graduate Award
(Pratibhamoyee Gold-Centered Silver Medal) at Jadavpur University, India Select Publications
2024 Sengupta, Anwesha. "Introduction of Symmetry in Introduction: A Close Reading of the Prologue of Jāyasī’s Padmāvat." In Literary Cultures in Early Modern North India- current research, edited by Danuta Stasik and Imre Bangha (peer-reviewed, Oxford University Press)
2020 Sengupta, Anwesha. "Trans-textuality, Translation and Equivalence: Exploring the
Processes of Textual Transposition in the Prologue of Ālāol’s Padmābatī." In An Earthly Paradise: Trade, Politics and Culture in Early Modern Bengal, edited by Raziuddin Aquil and Tilottama Mukherjee, 397-434. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Routledge.
2020 Sengupta, Anwesha. “Stranger on the Doorstep: Interacting with the Pheriwallahs (mobile street vendors) of Kolkata.” Vol. 2, in Kolkata in space, time and imagination: Rethinking of heritage, edited by Anuradha Roy and Melitta Waligora. Primus Books.
2015 Sengupta, Anwesha. "City Calls to City Walls: Pheriwallah/wallihs and the (Un)contested
Spaces of Kolkata." Südasien-Chronik - South Asia Chronicle (Südasien-Seminar der
Humboldt-Universität Zu Berlin) 5: 305-324.
