Pavitra Sundar

Pavitra Sundar is a feminist teacher-scholar with expertise in cinema and media studies, sound studies, postcolonial literary and cultural studies, and women’s and gender studies. Sundar’s monograph Listening with a Feminist Ear examines the cultural politics and possibilities of sound in Bombay cinema. Her research on the gendered politics of voice and media appears in BioScope; Communication, Culture, and Critique; Jump Cut; and Sounding Out!, among other venues. Deeply committed to collaborative work, Sundar has co-edited numerous special issues and co-organized grant-funded events, including a film festival and symposium at the George Eastman Museum. Her co-edited volume Thinking with an Accent won the ACLA’s Rene Wellek Prize for Best Edited Collection, and she co-edits a book series on the topic. Sundar’s publications in her emerging areas of interest—videographic criticism and disability studies—have also been recognized in the annual BFI Sight and Sound Polls for the Best Video Essays.

Recent Courses Taught

Echoes and Encores: Repetition in Literature
Bollywood Film
Listen! Sound Histories and Imaginaries
Indians, Aliens, Others
’earing Accent
Transnational Feminist Frames
English and its Discontents

Research Interests

Film studies; sound studies; postcolonial studies; women’s and gender studies, particularly feminist theory, queer studies, and women-of-color and transnational feminisms; South Asian literary and cultural studies; disability studies; videographic criticism.

Distinctions

• British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound Poll for the Best Video Essays of 2025: “On Listening.”
• British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound Poll for the Best Video Essays of 2024: “Deafening.”
• ACLA 2024 René Wellek Prize for Best Edited Collection, Thinking with an Accent, 2024
• Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Award Longlist, Listening with a Feminist Ear, 2024
• Honorable mention, MLA 2024 Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for South Asian Studies, Listening with a Feminist Ear, 2024.
• Dean’s Scholarly Achievement Award for Early Career Achievement, 2023
• Gertrude F. Bristol Faculty Fellowship, 2023–2024
• Steven B. Sands Faculty Innovation Award, Summer 2023
• Creative Arts and Technology Grant, Summer 2023
• Yordán Humanities Faculty Research Grant, May 2022
• CNY Humanities Corridor Signature Event Grants (with Anaar Desai-Stephens and with Joel Burges and Roger Hallas), 2019, 2025
• National Humanities Center Summer Residency, 2018
• Humanities Center Interdisciplinary Collaborations Award (with Celeste Day Moore), 2017
• Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, Dartmouth College, 2008-2010
• Center for the Arts in Society Fellowship, Carnegie Mellon University, 2008 (declined)

Select Publications

Books and Edited Collections

• Series Co-editor, Accented. Open-access book series with Amherst College Press, co-edited with Pooja Rangan, Akshya Saxena, and Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan.
• Listening with a Feminist Ear: Soundwork in Bombay Cinema. University of Michigan Press. 2023. Open access.
• Thinking with an Accent: Toward a New Object, Method, and Practice. Co-edited with Pooja Rangan, Akshya Saxena, and Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan. University of California Press. 2023. Open access.
• Cinematic Bodies/Videographic Forms. Lead co-editor of Special Issue of [in]Transition 12.4 (2025). Open access.
• Decolonial Feminisms. Co-edited with Debashree Mukherjee. Special Issue of Feminist Media Histories 8.1 (Winter 2022): 1–15.
• Masculinities. Co-edited with Praseeda Gopinath. Special Issue of South Asian Popular Culture 18.1 (Spring 2020): 1–10.

Essays and Articles

• “Deafening.” [in]Transition 12.4 (2025). Open access.
• “On Listening.” [in]Transition 11.4 (2024). Open access.
• “Voice.” Keywords special issue. BioScope 12.1–2 (2021): 193–196.
• “Usha Uthup and her Husky, Heavy Voice,” Indian Sound Cultures, Indian Sound Citizenship. Eds. Laura Brueck, Jacob Smith, and Neil Verma. University of Michigan Press, 2020. 115–151.
• “The Queer Sound of the Dandiya Queen, Falguni Pathak.” Gendered Soundscapes of India. Special Forum of Sounding Out! Eds. Praseeda Gopinath and Monika Mehta. October 23, 2017. Open access.
• “The Time of Television: Broadcasting, Daily Life, and the New Indian Middle Class.” Co-authored with Aswin Punathambekar. Communication, Culture, and Critique (November 2016): 401–421.
• “Of Radio, Remix, and Rang De Basanti: Reimagining History Through Film Sound.” Jump Cut 56 (Fall 2014). Open access.

College Service

• Director, Cinema and Media Studies Program 2024–27, (member 2020–present)
• Chair, Kirkland Endowment Advisory Committee 2024–26, (member 2019–present)
• Vice President, Hamilton AAUP chapter (elected) 2021–23
• Committee on Academic Policy (elected) 2021–22
• Committee on Evaluating Teaching 2019–23
• Global Education Advisory Committee 2019–22
• Faculty Mentoring Program, 2018–20
• Honor Court (elected), 2018–21
• Junior Faculty Caucus Organizing Collective,  2016–20

Appointed to the Faculty

2016

Educational Background

Ph.D., University of Michigan
M.A., University of Michigan
B.A., Ithaca College