Biography

Albeena Shakil is a Professor of English Studies at the Jindal Global Law School.

She did her BA (Hons.) in English from Miranda House, University of Delhi; and MA in English from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She was awarded a PhD by JNU for her thesis titled “Theories of the Novel: A Critical Study of the Development of the Form in the Western Tradition.”

She was elected Secretary of IACLALS (now Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies in India), 2020-24. She was a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, between 2014-16, where she guest edited three volumes of Summerhill: IIAS Review on the themes of ‘Violence’, ‘Location’ and ‘IIAS Golden Jubilee.’ 

She has authored Understanding the Novel: A Theoretical Overview (2015) and co-edited Spheres of Injustice (with Gopal Guru, 2023); From Canon to Covid: Transforming English Literary Studies in India (with Angelie Multani, Swati Pal, Nandini Saha and Arjun Ghosh, 2023); IACLALS Journal: Reimag(in)ing Identities in the Global South (with Amitendu Bhattacharya and Dhurjjati Sarma, 2020); and Jindal Global Law Review: Women and Law in South Asia (with Upasana Mahanta and Sameena Dalwai, 2019).  

She is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled Ambidextrous Narratives: Neoliberalism, Middle Classes and the Indian-English Novel, which is about decoding the aesthetic complexity of stories to understand how shared stories construct, define and negotiate the identities and ideologies of communities. 

She is otherwise interested in Badminton, Volleyball, Table Tennis and Hindustani Vocal Classical music.