Tejaswini Niranjana (born 26 July 1958) is an Indian professor, cultural theorist, translator and author. She is best known for her contribution to the fields of culture studies, gender studies, translation, and ethnomusicology (particularly relating to different forms of Indian music). She is the daughter of Kannada playwright and novelist Niranjana and writer Anupama Niranjana. Her partner is Indian author and cultural theorist, Ashish Rajadhyaksha.
In 2021, Tejaswini Niranjana was awarded the American Literary Translators Association Prize for Prose Fiction Translation for No Presents Please, a translation of author Jayant Kaikini's short stories centred around the city of Mumbai. In 2019, No Presents Please was awarded the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2018, which Niranjana shared jointly with Jayant Kaikini.
She is the recipient of the 2018 Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship, Research Grants Council, Hong Kong. Niranjana was also awarded the Karnataka Sahitya Akademi Award for Best Translation of 1994.
Niranjana is best known for her theory of the relationship between colonialism and translation, writings on feminism and the 'culture question' in India, and her practice-based research into music (specifically Caribbean music, Hindustani classical music, and India-China collaborations).
Niranjana has an M.A. in English and Aesthetics from the University of Bombay, an MPhil in Linguistics from the University of Pune, and a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Niranjana was the co-founder and a senior fellow at the Centre for Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore, where she was also Lead Researcher in the HEIRA Program. Currently, Niranjana serves as the Director, Centre for Inter-Asian Research; and as Dean of Online Programmes, Ahmedabad University.
Born in Dharwad, India to the Kannada playwright and novelist Niranjana and writer Anupama Niranjana, Niranjana moved to Bangalore, India at the age of 2. She completed her schooling in Bangalore at The Home School (1962-1971); Mahila Seva Samaja (1971-1974), attended pre-University at the National College, Jayanagar (1974–76), and an undergraduate degree from the National College, Basavangudi, Bangalore (1976–79).
Later, she completed an M.A. in English and Aesthetics from the University of Bombay, an MPhil in Linguistics from the University of Pune, and a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Since 2021, Niranjana serves as the Director, Centre for Inter-Asian Research; and as Dean of Online Programmes, Ahmedabad University.
Niranjana was the co-founder and a senior fellow at the Centre for Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore, where she was also Lead Researcher in the HEIRA Program.[1] She was the chair at the Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai[2] from 2012 till 2016.
From 2016 to 2021, she was a professor and Head of Department of Cultural Studies, at Lingnan University, Hong Kong,[3] and Visiting Professor with the School of Arts and Science at Ahmedabad University.[4] She was the Chair of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society.[5]
She is the conceptualiser[6] and co-producer of Jahaji Music, a documentary, starring Indian-Portuguese musician Remo Fernandes, that looks at musical forms in the Indian diaspora in the Caribbean.[2] The film's title translates to "Ship's Music" which is a reference to the ships that carried indentured labour settlers from East India to French-Trinidad in the mid 19th century.[7] The film, co-produced by filmmaker Surabhi Sharma, connected the worlds of gender, music and migration and was well received by the media.[8] [9]
She is also the author of Musicophilia in Mumbai, which examines the cultural, political and geographical reasons why Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) became such a popular centre for Hindustani music. In a 2014 interview with Online Indian Women's magazine The Ladies Finger, she detailed her research process for this project, which she describes as part ethnographic, part archival work and several interviews.[10] As part of the same project, she once again collaborated with filmmaker Surabhi Sharma to produce the film Phir Se Sam Pe Aana (Returning to the first beat).[9]
She was a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore from 2013 till 2016 . She is also the recipient of the Sephis Postdoctoral Fellowship (1997-1999), Sawyer Fellow at the University of Michigan; Rockefeller Fellow, University of Chicago, and the Homi Bhabha National Fellowship. She was awarded the Central Sahitya Akademi Award for Best Translation Into English (1993), and the Karnataka State Sahitya Akademi Award for Best Translation (1994).[11]
She has lecturedin the West Indies, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, Taiwan, the U.S, and the U.K.[12] She learned music for a decade from Mumbai-based Gwalior gharana singer Neela Bhagwat.[13]
Teju is also known in academic circles for her keen efforts in creating a bi-lingual pedagogy manual for classrooms in Indian Higher Education classrooms. Initial research toward this was carried out with fellow feminist scholar Sharmila Rege.[14]
In 2009, she was part of a 180 strong list of Indian Academics who opposed Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, on the grounds that it was anti-democratic.[15]
| 2018 | Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship, Research Grants Council, Hong Kong | |
| 2016 | Senior Visiting Research Fellow, Asia Research Institute, NUS Singapore | |
| 2013 | Lichtstern Distinguished Visiting Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago | |
| 2013 | Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society; Advisor to the Access to Knowledge Team working on the Indian Wikipedia | |
| 2011 | Fellow, Institut d’etudes avancees [Institute of Advanced Studies/Research] de Nantes, France | |
| 2007 | Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin [Institute of Advanced Studies], Germany | |
| 2005 | Honorary Visiting Professor, Centre for Women’s Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University | |
| 1997-99 | Sephis (Netherlands) Postdoctoral Fellowship | |
| 1996 | Sawyer Fellow, International Institute, University of Michigan | |
| 1996 | Rockefeller Fellow, Program in Globalization and the Media, Chicago Humanities Institute, University of Chicago | |
| 1992-94 | Homi Bhabha National Fellowship |