Lalitha Gopalan is an associate professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film and affiliate faculty in the Department of Asian Studies and South Asia Institute. Her research and teaching interests are in the areas of Film Theory, Feminist Film Theory, Contemporary World Cinemas, Indian Cinemas, Genre Films, and Experimental Film and Video. Essays and books written by her include Cinemas Dark and Slow in Digital India (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021; Orient Blackswan 2021), Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema (London: BFI Publishing, 2002) and Bombay (London: BFI Modern Classics, 2005); and the edited volume The Cinema of India (London: Wallflower Press, 2010). Her current book project explores various experimental film and video practices in India.

She has published essays in journals including Screen, Journal of Moving Image, Film Quarterly, New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, and many landmark anthologies.

She has been a recipient of several grants including Senior Fellowship from the Polish Institute of Advanced Study in Warsaw, Provost’s Author’s Fellowship from the University of Texas at Austin, Tagore Fellowship from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India; Senior Long-Term Fellowship, American Institute of Indian Studies; and Fulbright Hays-Nehru Fellowship.

Long interested in curatorial practices her recent co-curated projects with Anuj Vaidya include Cruel Cinema: New Directions in Tamil Cinema (2011-12) and Other Species, Other Times: New Video Art from India (2015-16).

Lalitha Gopalan currently serves on the editorial board of Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies as well as for Journal of Cinema and Media Studies. She has served on several film festival juries and is currently on the advisory board of 3rd i Film Festival, San Francisco.