Dr. Kanupriya Dhingra

Dr Kanupriya Dhingra researches on the History of the Book and Print Cultures, with a focus on Delhi (India), from an ethnographic perspective. She earned her doctorate under the Felix Scholarship Fund from SOAS, University of London in 2021, on the dissertation titled ‘Daryaganj’s Parallel Book History’, which she is currently revising into a monograph. Her doctoral research is based on oral interviews and rhythmanalysis conducted in Old Delhi. Supported by the SOAS Fieldwork Grant, Kanupriya interviewed more than 200 booksellers and several shauqeen book buyers of Daryaganj.

While writing her doctoral thesis on the parallel book markets and the nayi-jaisi books of Old Delhi, Kanupriya delivered talks at the University of Oxford, The British Library, The Books and Prints Initiative and The Institute of Historical Research at the School of Advanced Studies, Jadavpur University, Ambedkar University, among others. She has written extensively about her research for journals, magazines, and digital news publications such as Comparative Critical Studies (Edinburgh University Press), The Caravan, Scroll, and Himāl SouthAsian. She is also contributing a chapter to the fourth volume of the Book History in India series, edited by Abhijit Gupta and Swapan Chakravorty. Currently, Kanupriya is producing a photo-archive of the Sunday book bazaar, which she intends to pursue as a creative project on the parallel production and dissemination of books in Old Delhi.

Apart from her interest in ‘the book’, Kanupriya’s research engages with oral history, urban studies, interdisciplinary spatial studies, and the theories of the everyday. Before joining SOAS, she has also worked at the Centre for Academic Translation and Archiving as a Project Fellow at the Department of English, University of Delhi, under a research-support and development program sponsored by University Grants Commission (India).

Kanupriya is deeply interested in Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu poetry, especially that of Amrita Pritam, and continues to research and translate it. Some of her poems, short stories, and translations have appeared in Indian Literature, Scroll, Indian Writers Forum, Guftgu, Aainanagar, and Antiserious. Her translations of two short stories, by Premchand and Nasira Sharma, into English, will appear in edited volumes to be published by Speaking Tiger Books and Oxford University Press, respectively.