Samhita Sunya is an assistant professor of cinema in the department of Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Cultures at the University of Virginia. Her interests span world film history, feminist historiography, informal practices of media distribution across South / West Asia and the Indian Ocean, intersections of audio-visual media and literary forms, and sound studies. Her book Sirens of Modernity: World Cinema Via Bombay (U California Press 2022) historicizes the emergence of world cinema as a category of cinematic diplomacy that formed in the crucible of the Cold War and renders an account of the prolific transnational circuits of popular Hindi films alongside the efflorescence of European art cinema and Cold War–era forays of Hollywood abroad. She currently directs the undergraduate Distinguished Majors Program in MESALC at UVA and serves on the executive committee of the Screen Arts and Culture forum of the Modern Language Association.
