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Dr Rohit K Dasgupta

Dr Rohit K Dasgupta

Associate Professor of Gender & Sexuality

Department of Gender Studies

Email
r.dasgupta2@lse.ac.uk
Room No
PAN11.01.G
Connect with me

Website

Languages
Bengali, English, Hindi
Key Expertise
queer politics, diaspora, media & cultural production, cultural labour

About me

Rohit K Dasgupta is Associate Professor of Gender & Sexuality. Prior to my current role I was Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow where I am currently Honorary Senior Research Fellow. I have previously held teaching and research posts at Loughborough University, University of Southampton, University of Sussex, University of West London and University of the Arts London. I have also held visiting fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania and Fordham University in New York. I have experience in policy making and political strategy for a number of years as elected councillor in the London Borough of Newham in the areas of Equalities, Social Justice and Culture.

Using ethnographic and creative methodologies I have explored the relationship between sexuality, class and belonging in contemporary India which led to my first monograph Digital Queer Cultures in India: Politics, Intimacies & Belonging (Routledge, 2017) and the subsequent books Queering Digital India: Activisms, Identities, Subjectivities (Edinburgh University Press, 2018); Social Media, Sexuality & Sexual Health Advocacy in Kolkata, India (Bloomsbury, 2018) and Friendship as Social Justice Activism (Seagull/University of Chicago Press, 2018), which received an Honourable Mention by Pen America. 

I currently edit two book series- Ethnographic Innovations, South Asian Perspectives (with Niharika Banerjea & Paul Boyce) for Routledge and South Asian Screens (with Sangita Gopal) for Bloomsbury. 

 

Expertise Details

queer politics; diaspora; media & cultural production; cultural labour

Publications

Authored Books

Churnjeet Mahn, Rohit K Dasgupta and DJ Ritu (forthcoming) Desi Queers LGBTQ+ South Asians and Cultural Belonging in Britain. London: Hurst & Co. ISBN: 9781911723646. 280 pp

Rohit K Dasgupta, Amrita Ghosh and Bhakti Shringarpure (forthcoming) India’s Imperial Formations: Cultural perspectives. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN: 9781683932994. 148 pp.

Kaustav Bakshi and Rohit K Dasgupta (2019). Queer Studies: Texts, Contexts, Praxis. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan. ISBN: 9789352875849. 200 pp.

Rohit K Dasgupta and Sangeeta Datta (2019). 100 Essential Indian Films. Lanham, MD/London: Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN: 9781442277984. 282 pp

Rohit K Dasgupta and Pawan Dhall (2017) Social Media, Sexuality, and Sexual Health Advocacy in Kolkata, India. New Delhi/London: Bloomsbury Publications. ISBN: 9789386432650. 130pp.

Rohit K Dasgupta (2017) Digital Queer Cultures in India: Politics, Intimacies and Belonging. London/New Delhi: Routledge. ISBN: 9781138220348. 208 pp.

Edited Volumes

Rohit K Dasgupta and Clelia Clini (Eds.). (2024). The Cultural Industries of India. London/New York/New Delhi: Routledge. ISBN: 9781032445090. 116 pp.

Somak Biswas, Rohit K Dasgupta and Churnjeet Mahn (Eds). Queer Politics in Times of New Authoritarianisms: Popular Culture in South Asia. London/New York/New Delhi: Routledge. ISBN: 9781032610337. 118 pp.

Niharika Banerjea, Paul Boyce and Rohit K Dasgupta (Eds.) (Routledge, 2022) COVID- 19 Assemblages: Queer and Feminist Ethnographies from South Asia. London/New York/New Delhi: Routledge. ISBN: 9781032201108. 220pp.

Clelia Clini, Rohit K Dasgupta and Yangling Yang (Eds.) (2021) South and East Asian Cinemas Across Borders: Critical Trends in Transnational Cinema. London/New York/New Delhi: Routledge. ISBN: 9780367693732. 102 pp.

Lipi Begum, Rohit K Dasgupta and Reina Lewis (Eds.) (2018). Styling South Asian Youth Cultures: Fashion, Media and Society. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN: 9781784539177. 272 pp.

Rohit K Dasgupta and Debanuj Dasgupta (2018) (Eds). Queering Digital India: Activisms, Identities, Subjectivities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN: 9781474421171. 216pp.

Niharika Banerjea, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit K Dasgupta and Jaime Grant (2018) (Eds.). Friendship as Social Justice Activism: Critical Solidarities in a Global Perspective. Kolkata/London: Seagull Books and Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 9780857424433. 288pp.

  •  This book received an Honourable Mention by PEN America on their Freedom, Power and Rage List

 Sangeeta Datta, Kaustav Bakshi and Rohit K Dasgupta (Eds.) (2015). Rituparno Ghosh: Cinema, Gender and Art. Abingdon/New Delhi: Routledge. ISBN: 9781138953901. 303 pp.

Rohit K Dasgupta and K Moti Gokulsing. (Eds). (2014). Masculinity and its Challenges in India: Essays on Changing Perceptions. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN: 9780786472246. 252 pp.

Journal Articles

Rohit K Dasgupta and Clelia Clini (2023) ‘The Cultural Industries of India: An Introduction’. Cultural Trends. 32 (4): 341-347. ISSN: 0954-8963

Rohit K Dasgupta and Kaustav Bakshi (2023) ‘Queer Film Festivals in India: Precarious Cultural work, Community making and Social change’. Cultural Trends. 32 (4): 348-365. ISSN: 0954-8963

Jennie Jordan, Rohit K Dasgupta and Graham Hitchen (2023) ‘Mapping innovation in India’s creative industries: An ecosystem framework’. Cultural Trends. 32 (4): 416-428. ISSN: 0954-8963

Somak Biswas, Rohit K Dasgupta and Churnjeet Mahn (2023) ‘Queer Politics in Times of New Authoritarianisms.’ South Asian Popular Culture. 21 (2): 147-153. ISSN: 1474-6697

Rohit K Dasgupta and Churnjeet Mahn (2023) ‘Between visibility and elsewhere: South Asian queer creative cultures and resistance.’ South Asian Diaspora. 15 (1): 1-16. ISSN: 1943-8192

Rohit K Dasgupta (2023) ‘Mourning a Queer Aunty: Creative Resistance, activism and performing family’ South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. 46(1): 234-251. ISSN: 0085-6401

Rohit K Dasgupta (2022) ‘Viral Assemblages and witnessing extraordinary times: Queer patchworks of intimacy, precarity and affect in an Indian city’ Journal of Intercultural Studies. 43 (6): 880-896. ISSN: 0725-6868

Zhao, Yang., Zhang, Tao., Rohit K Dasgupta.  and Xia, Renpin. (2022) ‘Narrowing the age-based digital divide: Developing digital capability through social activities.’ Information Systems Journal. 33 (2): 268-298. ISSN: 1365-2575

Rohit K Dasgupta (2022) ‘‘Grindr is basically interactive porn’: ethnographic observations from Kolkata on queer intimacies and ‘pic exchange’ on Grindr and Planet Romeo’. Porn Studies. 9(3): 339-345. ISSN: 2326-8743

Paul Boyce and Rohit K Dasgupta (2021). Debanuj and Joyraj: Queering the City. Contemporary South Asia. 28 (4): 511-523. ISSN: 0958-4935

Yanling Yang, Clelia Clini and Rohit K Dasgupta (2020) ‘Critical Trends in Transnational Cinema: Inter-Asian productions and exchanges’ Transnational Screens. 11 (3): 177-186. ISSN: 2578-5273

Rohit K Dasgupta (2018). Ambalavaner Sivanandan and Black Politics in Britain. Theory, Culture and Society. 35 (7-8): 331-336. ISSN: 0263-2764

Rohit K Dasgupta and Kaustav Bakshi (2018). Opening Closets and Dividing Audiences: Rituparno Ghosh, the Queer Star of Bengali cinema. South Asian Popular Culture. 16 (1): 101-113. ISSN: 1474-6689

Paul Boyce, Sarah Brown, Sue Cavill, Sonalee Chaukekar, Beatrice Chisenga, Mamata Dash, Rohit K Dasgupta, Noemie De La Brosse, Pawan Dhall, Julie Fisher, Marli Gutierrez-Patterson, Oinam Hemabati, Andrés Hueso, Salma Khan, Santa Khurai, Archana Patkar, Priya Nath, Marielle Snel, and Kopila Thapa (2018). Transgender-Inclusive Sanitation: Insights from South Asia. Waterlines: An International Journal of Water, Sanitation and Waste. 37 (2): 102-117. ISSN: 0262-8104

  • [Cited in World Health organization Report on Sanitation and Health in South Asia as the only research paper on Trans inclusivity]

Debanuj Dasgupta and Rohit K Dasgupta (2018) Being Out of Place: Non Belonging and Queer Racialization in U.K. Emotion, Space and Society. 27 (May): 31-38 ISSN: 1755-4586

Rohit K Dasgupta and Debanuj Dasgupta (2018) Intimate Subjects and Virtual Spaces: Rethinking Sexuality as a Category for Intimate Ethnographies. Sexualities. 21 (5-6): 932-950. ISSN: 1363-4607

Kaustav Bakshi and Rohit K Dasgupta (2017) From Teen Kanya to Arshinagar: Feminist Politics, Bengali High Culture and the Stardom of Aparna Sen. South Asian History and Culture. 8(2): 186-204. ISSN: 1947-2498

Sharif Mowlabocus, Craig Haslop and Rohit K Dasgupta (2016). From Scene to Screen: The Challenges and Opportunities of Commercial Digital Platforms for HIV Community Outreach. Social Media and Society. 2(4): 1-8 ISSN: 2056-3051

Rohit K Dasgupta (2016). Remembering Benedict Anderson and his Influence on South Asian Studies. Theory, Culture and Society. 33 (7-8): 334-338. ISSN: 0263-2764

Rohit K Dasgupta and Tanmayee Banerjee (2016). Exploitation, Victimhood and Gendered Performance in Rituparno Ghosh’s Bariwali. Film Quarterly (University of California Press). 69 (4): 35- 46. ISSN: 0015-1386

Rohit K Dasgupta (2016). Labour Wins London: Sadiq Khan and the Future of British Politics. Economic and Political Weekly. 51 (21): 21-23. ISSN: 2349-8846

Rohit K Dasgupta (2016). ‘The University Shall be the Battleground for Freedom’: Solidarity and Diaspora Organising in London. South Asian History and Culture. 7 (3): 308-311 ISSN: 1947-2498

Rittika Dasgupta and Rohit K Dasgupta (2016) ‘Intersecting Sexuality and Nationalism: Reading Queerness in Funny Boy’. Sahitya: The Journal of the Comparative Literature Association of India. Vol 6-7: 22-34. ISSN: 2249-6416

Sharif Mowlabocus, Justin Harbottle, Ben Tooke, Craig Haslop and Rohit K Dasgupta

(2015) "Because even the placement of a comma might be important": Expertise, Embodiment and Social Capital in Online Sexual Health Promotion. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. 21 (3): 375-387. ISSN: 1354-8565

Lipi Begum and Rohit K Dasgupta (2015). South Asian Youth Cultures and the Fashion Landscape. International Journal of Fashion Studies. 2 (1): 133-145. ISSN: 2051-7106

Sangeeta Datta, Kaustav Bakshi and Rohit K Dasgupta (2015). ‘The World of Rituparno Ghosh: Texts, Contexts and Transgressions’. South Asian History and Culture. 6 (2): 223-237. ISSN: 1947-2498

Rohit K Dasgupta (2015). Dissident citizenship: Articulating belonging, dissidence and queerness on cyberspace. South Asian Review. 35 (3): 203-223. ISSN: 0038-2841

Rohit K Dasgupta (2015). The Visual Representation of Queer Bollywood: Mistaken Identities and Misreadings in Dostana. JAWS: Journal of Arts Writing. 1 (1): 91-101. ISSN: 2055-2823. [To be reprinted in Subhashish Bhattacharjee (Ed.). Queering Visual Cultures: Representing Sexual Politics on Stage and Screen. Montreal: Universitas Press, ISBN 9780995029132]

Rohit K Dasgupta. (2013). Launda Dancers: The Dancing Boys of India. Asian Affairs: Journal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs. 44 (3): 442-448. ISSN: 0306-8374

Rohit K Dasgupta (2012). Digital Media and the Internet for HIV Prevention, Capacity Building and Advocacy Among Gay, Other Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) and Transgenders: Perspectives from Kolkata, India. Digital Culture and Education. 4(1): 88-109. ISSN: 1836-8301

Rohit K Dasgupta (2011). Queer Sexuality: A Cultural Narrative of India’s Historical Archive. Rupkatha Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities. 3(4): 651-670. ISSN: 0975-2935

Book Chapters

Rohit K Dasgupta (2022) ‘Queer Patchworks: Liveability, creative work and survival in the time of COVID.’ In N. Banerjea, P. Boyce and R.K. Dasgupta (Eds). COVID Assemblages: Queer and Feminist Ethnographies from South Asia. London/New York/New Delhi: Routledge

Rohit K Dasgupta (2020) ‘Keep it Classy': Grindr, Facebook and Enclaves of queer privilege in India. In E. Polson, L. Clark and R. Gajjala (Eds.). Routledge Companion to Media and Class. New York: Routledge. 90-98. ISBN 9781032084213

Paul Boyce and Rohit K Dasgupta (2019) Alternating Sexualities: Sociology and Queer Critiques in India. In S. Srivastava, Y. Arif and J. Nair (Eds.). Critical Themes in Indian Sociology. New Delhi: Sage. 330-345. ISBN: 9789352807956

Rohit K Dasgupta and Kaustav Bakshi (2018). Rituparno Ghosh, Sartorial Codes and the Queer Bengali Youth. In Lipi Begum, Rohit K Dasgupta and Reina Lewis (Eds.). Styling South Asian Youth Cultures: Fashion, Media and Society. London: I.B Tauris. ISBN: 9781784539177

Rohit K Dasgupta (2018) Online Romeos and Gay-dia: Exploring Queer Spaces in Digital India. Elizabeth Mcneil and James Wermers (Eds.) Mapping Queer Spaces of Praxis and Pedagogy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 183-200. ISBN: 9783319646220

Rohit K Dasgupta and Debanuj Dasgupta (2018). Introduction: Queering Digital India. In Rohit K Dasgupta and Debanuj Dasgupta (Eds.). Queering Digital India: Activisms, Identities and Subjectivities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 1-26. ISBN: 9781474421195

Niharika Banerjea, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit K Dasgupta, Aniruddha Dutta, Radhika Gajjala, Amit S Rai and Jack Harrison-Quintana (2017) Queering Digital Cultures: A Roundtable Conversation. In Rohit K Dasgupta and Debanuj Dasgupta (Eds.). Queering Digital India: Activisms, Identities and Subjectivities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 29-53. ISBN: 9781474421195

Rohit K Dasgupta (2018). Digital Outreach and Sexual Health Advocacy: SAATHII as a response. In Rohit K Dasgupta and Debanuj Dasgupta (Eds.). Queering Digital India: Activisms, Identities and Subjectivities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 112-131. ISBN: 9781474421195

Niharika Banerjea, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit K Dasgupta and Jaime Grant (2018). Why Friendship as Social Activism. In Niharika Banerjea, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit K Dasgupta and Jaime Grant (Eds.). Friendship as Social Justice Activism. London/Kolkata/Chicago: Seagull Books/University of Chicago Press. 1-8 ISBN: 9780857424433

Rohit K Dasgupta (2018). Kinship, Friendship and Researching Queer Digital Media in India. In Niharika Banerjea, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit K Dasgupta and Jaime Grant (Eds.). Friendship as Social Justice Activism. London/Kolkata/Chicago: Seagull Books/University of Chicago Press. 53-64. ISBN: 9780857424433

Rohit K Dasgupta, Sunil Gupta and Rahul Rao (2018). Concluding Conversation. In Niharika Banerjea, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit K Dasgupta and Jaime Grant (Eds.). Friendship as Social Justice Activism. London/Kolkata/Chicago: Seagull Books/University of Chicago Press. 65-78 ISBN: 9780857424433

Niharika Banerjea, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit K Dasgupta and Jaime Grant (2018). Concluding Conversation. In Niharika Banerjea, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit K Dasgupta and Jaime Grant (Eds.). Friendship as Social Justice Activism. London/Kolkata/Chicago: Seagull Books/University of Chicago Press. 271-281 ISBN: 9780857424433

Paul Boyce and Rohit K Dasgupta (2017) Utopia or Elsewhere: Queer Modernities in Small Town West Bengal. In Tereza Kuldova and Mathew Varghese (Eds.). Urban Utopias: Excess and Expulsion in Neoliberal South Asia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 209-225. ISBN: 9783319476223

Rohit K Dasgupta (2017) Game of Thrones in India: Of Piracy, Queer Intimacy and Viral Memes. In Kavita Mudan Finn (Ed.). Fan Phenomena: Game of Thrones. Bristol: Intellect/Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 152-162. ISBN: 9781783207848

Rohit K Dasgupta (2016). Queering Virtual Intimacies in Contemporary India. In B.Scherer (Ed.). Queering Paradigms VI: Interventions, Ethics and Glocalities. Oxford/New York: Peter Lang. 197-213. ISBN: 9781906165871

Rohit K Dasgupta (2015) Queer Kinship in New Queer India: From Wadia’s Bomgay to R.Raj Rao’s ‘Crocodile Tears’. In Nibedita Mukherjee (Ed). Gendering the Narrative: Indian English Fiction and Gender Discourse. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 23-33. ISBN: 9781443877961

Rohit K Dasgupta (2014). Parties, Advocacy and Activism: Interrogating Community and Class in Digital Queer India. In Christopher Pullen (Ed.) Queer Youth and Media Cultures. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 265-277. ISBN: 9781137383549

Rohit K Dasgupta (2014). Gender and Nation: Postcolonial Conflicts in South Asia. In G.N Ray, Jaydip Sarkar and Anindya Bhattacharya (Eds.) Writing Difference: Nationalism, Literature and Identity. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 63-79. ISBN: 9788126919383

Rohit K Dasgupta and K Moti Gokulsing (2014). Introduction: Perceptions of Masculinity and Challenges to the Indian Male. In Rohit K Dasgupta and K. Moti Gokulsing (Eds.). Masculinity and its Challenges in India: Essays on Changing Perceptions. Jefferson, NC: Mcfarland, 5-25. ISBN: 9780786472246

Rohit K Dasgupta (2011). An Exodus Scripted in Blood: A Gendered Reading of Partition. In Debra Castillo and Kavita Panjabi (Eds.) Cartographies of Affect: Across Borders in South Asia and Americas. New Delhi: Worldview Publications, 276- 285. ISBN: 9788192065106

Research

My current research interests are in cultural and queer politics in South Asia & the diaspora. I have recently completed a British Academy funded project on South Asian Queer diasporic organising & cultural production in Britain and a Carnegie Trust funded project on Queer film festivals and community making in India and about to start a three-year AHRC funded project 'Crafting Sustainability & Equitability' which will explore cultural labour in the Indian handicraft sector with an aim to address inequalities of gender, sexuality, religion, and caste from an intersectional perspective.  

 I am currently working on two co-authored monographs - Desi Queers: LGBTQ+ South Asians & Cultural Belonging in Britain (Hurst & Co) and India's Imperial Formations: Cultural Perspectives (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press).  

 I am also particularly interested in the role of digital culture and media for social change in relation to activism and intimate community making. 

I have received numerous grants & my research has been funded over the years by Wellcome Trust, Royal Society of Edinburgh, British Academy, Carnegie Trust, UKRI India and AHRC. 

 

Teaching

Rohit is the director for the MSc Gender (Sexuality) programme

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