Dr Somnath Batabyal

Somnath Batabyal is Associate Professor at the Department of Global Media and Communications at SOAS. He is the Co-Director and founding member of the Centre for AI Futures and co-Convenor of two Master's Programmes, Global Journalism and Global Media and Digital Communications.

Somnath has a Master’s in Anthropology and a PhD from SOAS and was Post Doctoral Fellow at the University of Heidelberg's Cluster of Excellence. Before he joined academia, Somnath was an award-winning investigative journalist and had worked in both print and television in India (including The Hindustan Times, The Week ,and NDTV) and the UK (The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times) for over a decade, an association he continues as occasional columnist and radio commentator and analyst (Scroll.in, Monocle Radio, Assam Tribune). His work has appeared in the New York Times, the BBC, Al Jazzera, beside others.

Somnath's research spans several interdisciplinary subject areas; as Co-Director of the Centre for AI Futures, Somnath works with a critical focus on materialism and AI, as co Convenor of Global Journalism, his research focusses on the politics of news production and understanding journalistic practices through grounded ethnography and as a co Convenor of Global Media and Digital Communications his work looks at the politics of climate change and discourses  around Development and  social justice, focussing on the Global South. 

Somnath's self-proclaimed mission is to make academic writing and research accessible to a wider audience. He combines rigorous academic research with writing in different forms, from popular and literary fiction to television and film scripts. His first novel, The Price You Pay, - praised as 'a terrific debut', (William Dalrymple) and as evocative and thought provoking by the Booker winning novelist, Shehan Karunatilaka  - was adapted into a popular television series (Crime Beat) by the acclaimed Indian auteur, Sudhir Mishra. His most recent novel, Red River, has been heralded as 'required reading' by the multi award winning writer Jerry Pinto to understand xenophobia and othering. Praised for its lyricism and beauty. The International Booker Jury member, Nilanjana Roy calls the book 'miraculous  and heartbreaking.'  

Alongside research and writing, Somnath maintains a strong public profile and regularly appears on stage with prominent contemporary writers and intellectuals that have included, amongst others, Vikram Seth, Richard Osman, Prof Marina Weiner, Tash Aw and Tahmima Anam.  

Some of Somnath's public events:

• Launch of Red River with Sam Dalrymple 
• Interview with Federal TV 
• What's in a Name with Michael Rosen and Sheela Banerjee 
• The stories that we Carry with Pragya Tiwari 
• Untold Assam interview