Current Research Faculty

Shantanu Roy-Chaudhury is a Research Associate at the Institute of Chinese Studies. He is a foreign affairs analyst with an interest in China’s relations with the South Asian region. 

Shantanu is the author of "The China Factor: Beijing's Expanding Engagement with Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh, and Myanmar" (Routledge, 2023). The book examines China’s political, economic, and defence relations with the four nations and weighs the dividends of the bilateral relationships to better comprehend the geopolitical subtleties in the region, along with the implications for India. How China’s engagement in the region is also linked to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s wider ambitions of national rejuvenation is also illuminated upon.

Sugandha Tandon’s research lies in exploring the relationship between art and politics in Mao’s period (1949-1976). She is also interested in the study of history propaganda in China, museum studies as cultural institutions, and the generation of knowledge systems around exhibitions. Sugandha received her master's in history of art and appreciation from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Her master's dissertation, 'Exploration of Chinese Discourse in Aesthetics and Politics,' which explored the social and cultural history of the Mao period, prompted her to undertake studies which are aligned with her research interests. She is currently enrolled in an integrated MPhil-PhD program at Jawaharlal Nehru University where she has just submitted her M.Phil. dissertation, entitled "Making of Chinese Political Propaganda Posters (1949-76)."

Arijit Banerjee is a Research Assistant at the Institute of Chinese Studies. His research interests stretch from issues such as the role of art in politics and society, Historiography, Modern Chinese History, Modern South Asian History, Histories of Capitalism and Socialism (India-China), Aesthetic Philosophy, trans-national histories of Political theatre tradition, including  (socialist realist literature and film in India and China) Traditional Chinese Philosophy and Feminist Theatre. He is particularly interested in understanding how theatre and the state (cultural commissioners) were constructing  'revolutionary' bodies that were complicating the past structural mediations of agency, gender, and labor through different concepts such as 'fusion' or (Jiaotong 交融) transforming into a “dialectical unity” (Bian zheng tongyi 辯證統一). He is also interested in exploring how the Chinese socialist playwrights influenced the playwrights' opus in India, which in a way, bolstered/made possible the internationalist imagination of a post-colonial global south in building a transnational network of solidarity among the socialist cultural practitioners.

Snigdha Konar is a Research Assistant at the Institute of Chinese Studies. She has completed her M.Phil. from Centre for Chinese and South East Asian Studies in JNU.  Her dissertation “A Critical Appraisal of Characters in Lu Xun’s Fiction” explores character of characters in Lu Xun’s collections of novels Call to Arms (呐喊, Nàhǎn) and Wandering (彷徨, Pánghuáng).

She completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in the Chinese language from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her research interests include the Chinese language and literature, social issues, human rights and gender issues.