Dr Francesca Orsini
BA (Venice) PhD (London)
Overview
Department of the Languages and Cultures of South Asia
(Reader in the Literatures of North India)
Centre of South Asian Studies
(Chair, Centre of South Asian Studies)
Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies (CCLPS)
(Member)
Hindi Literature; North Indian literary cultures; Hindi; Urdu.Contact Details
- Name:
- Dr Francesca Orsini
- Email address:
- fo@soas.ac.uk
- Telephone:
- 020 7898 4242
- Address:
- School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG - Building:
- Russell Square: College Buildings
- On Sabbatical:
- From 1 January 2010 to 30 August 2010
Interests / Disciplines
Francesca Orsini is Reader in the Literatures of North India. She took her undergraduate degree in Hindi at the University of Venice, followed by a long spell in Delhi. Her PhD research at SOAS was on the Hindi public sphere of the 1920s and '30s. She taught at the University of Cambridge for 11 years and joined SOAS in 2006. She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Hindi literature.Dr Orsini's main area of research is modern Hindi literature, where she has published on Hindi literary life during the nationalist period; commercial genres such as detective fiction and "social romances"; women writers and women's journals; nineteenth-century commercial publishing in Hindi and Urdu. She has organized several workshops and conferences, including one on Love in South Asia.
Her most recent book, Print and Pleasure: the genres of commercial publishing in nineteenth-century north India, has been published by Permanent Black. Her edited collection Hindi and Urdu Before the Divide is forthcoming from Orient Longman.
In October 2006 she started a new research project on "North Indian Literary Culture and History, 1450-1650", funded by the AHRC, which finished in 2009. The project sought to rewrite the history of north Indian literature from a multi-lingual perspective, and included a series of seminars, workshops, and 3 annual conferences. The findings of the project will appear in a series of edited collections.
Teaching
Students supervised
Programmes Convened
Courses Taught
Expertise
For help in contacting SOAS academics and advice on services to business and the community, please contact SOAS Enterprise on 020 7898 4837 or email interface@soas.ac.uk.
For all press and media enquiries please call 020 7898 4956 or email jf51@soas.ac.uk
Available for
Regional Expertise
- South Asia
Country Expertise
- India
Languages
- Hindi
- Urdu
Publications
Authored Books
Orsini, Francesca (2002) The Hindi Public Sphere 1920-1940. Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism. Oxford University Press.
Chapters in Books
Orsini, Francesca (2006) 'Love Letters.' In: Orsini, F., (ed.), Love in South Asia. A Cultural History. Cambridge University Press, pp. 228-258.
Orsini, Francesca (2004) 'Detective Novels. A Commercial Genre in Nineteenth-Century North India.' In: Blackburn, S. and Dalmia, V., (eds.), India's Literary History. Essays on the Nineteenth Century. Permanent Black, pp. 435-482.
Orsini, Francesca (2004) 'The Reticent Autobiographer. Mahadevi Varma's Writings.' In: Arnold, D. and Blackburn, S., (eds.), Telling Lives in India. Biography, Autobiography, and Life History. Permanent Black, pp. 54-82.
