Namrata B. Kanchan is the International Humanities Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Cogut Institute for the Humanities specializing in Indian Ocean Studies. She obtained her doctoral degree from the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin in 2023. 

Namrata’s dissertation, “From Gilded Pens to Mortal Ears,” examines the genesis of early modern Dakani literature in western India’s Deccan sultanate courts through the study of the region’s manuscript and material culture. She also works on early modern Deccan-Dutch cultural relations, representations of premodern Islamicate imperial women in literary and visual media, and garden culture. She works with primary and secondary materials in Dakani, Hindi, Urdu, Braj Bhasha, Avadhi, Persian, Marathi, French, and Dutch.

She is the recipient of the 2023 Margaret B. Ševčenko Prize for the best article in Islamic Art and Culture (Historians of Islamic Art Association) and the 2023 Khamseen Art Online's Graduate Student Prize. Her research has been supported by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Rijksmuseum, Netherlands; the Andla Fonds, Netherlands; and several scholarships, grants, and fellowships by the University of Texas at Austin.

Join the Comparative Literature Department in welcoming Namrata to Brown!