Teaching
Courses
Education
- BA, Panjab University, Chandigarh
- MA in Modern History, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
- PhD, SOAS, London University
Profile
Shruti Kapila is Professor of History and Politics at the University of Cambridge, Director of Studies at Corpus Christi College and Co-Director of Global Humanities Initiative. Widely published, her most recent book ‘Violent Fraternity: Indian Political Thought in the Global Age’ (Princeton Press and Penguin India, 2021) captured the power of political ideas in founding modern India. She was awarded an OBE in the King’s Birthday Honours in 2024 for services to the Humanities. Prior to Cambridge, she held a research position at the University of Oxford and was Assistant Professor, in conjunction with a University Chair for Career Development, at Tufts University, Mass., USA.
She works on Modern and Contemporary India (c.1770 to the present) and Global Political Thought. Predating recent calls to ‘decolonise’ the curriculum by more than a decade; her academic life has been defined by centring the importance of India for the remaking of global political languages. Her new research work focuses on Indian democracy and its constitution, conservatism and global anti-imperialism. She has a long standing interest in the history of the modern subject, psychoanalysis and psychiatry in colonial India and the present day. She also researches and writes on the history of modern science and race, gender and political violence.
Her new book focuses on twentieth century political thought and theory and the Indian rewriting of modern political languages notably sovereignty, democracy, violence and republicanism. Highlighted as a ‘featured book’ of the year by its publisher, ‘Violent Fraternity: Indian Political Thought in the Global Age’ (Princeton University Press, 2021 and Penguin Random House India, 2021), reconstructs the most consequential political concepts that have defined India’s democracy, including sovereignty, subjectivity, religion and violence. She is also a renowned political commentator on forums such as the BBC, Financial Times, and Al Jazeera, and regularly writes a fortnightly column for The Print.
Read our interview with Prof. Shruti Kapila here.