Professor, Liberal Studies; Director, South & South-East Asian Studies, University of Montana

Ruth Vanita is a visiting scholar at the Centre of South Asian Studies and at the Centre for Film and Screen, Cambridge, for the 2015-16 year. She is Professor in the interdisciplinary humanities at the University of Montana and formerly Reader at Delhi University as well as co-founder of Manushi, India’s first nationwide feminist magazine. The author of many books, most recently Gender, Sex and the City: Urdu Poetry in India 1780-1870, she has written on Bombay cinema in several  books as well as articles, making connections between literature and cinema. She is currently working on a book on courtesans in Bombay cinema.