Sohni Chakrabarti, PhD

Introduction

Sohni Chakrabarti joined the University of Kurdistan-Hewler as Lecturer in English Literature in 2026. Prior to joining the UKH, she worked as an Associate Lecturer in Contemporary Literature at the University of St Andrews. She holds a PhD in English Literature from the University of St Andrews, specializing in twentieth and twenty-first-century women’s writing, feminist studies, diaspora studies, multiethnic literatures, and global anglophone literatures. Her primary research and teaching interests include contemporary literature, feminist theory, memory studies, diaspora studies and critical food studies. She teaches a diverse range of courses across genres and periods in English Literature at UKH. Her doctoral research closely examined the intricate ways in which memory and nostalgia influence the imagination of identity, home, and belonging in the works of Jhumpa Lahiri, Paule Marshall, and Ana Castillo, a project she is currently developing into a monograph. Expanding on these themes, she currently works on an interdisciplinary project on food, fermentation and indentureship. Alongside her current appointment at UKH, she continues her professional position as an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of English at the University of St Andrews. She is also a member of the Ameena Gafoor Institute for her work on indentureship.

Education

• - Ph.D. in English Literature, University of St Andrews, 2022
• - MA in English Literature, University of Bristol, 2016
• - BA in Psychology, University of Pune, 2010

Research

Her PhD research examined the complex ways in which memory and nostalgia influence the imagination of identity, home and belonging in the works of women’s writers from the diasporas. Post PhD, she has worked on food, intimacies, and affect in contemporary women narratives. She is currently working on her second research project which traces the cultural history of the Indian Indentured System through transnational circulation of spices, condiments, and preservation techniques from South Asia to the Caribbean and Fiji. She is a co-editor and collaborator alongside Dr Debarati Sen (University of Houston) and Dr Ishita Dey (South Asian University) on Gastrofeminism. They have already published a special section with Gastronomica on Gastrofeminism. They are currently in the process of submitting a longer edited volume based on their collaborative work. An active contributor to her field, her recent publications include a chapter exploring Chicana feminist resistance and 'La Llorona' in The Weird: A Companion (2025). Sohni Chakrabarti has also published with Peter Lang, Journal of Indentureship and its Legacies, Gastronomica, and Society and Culture in South Asia.