Nandini Das

• Renaissance studies
• Travel literature
• English Renaissance theatre
• Cultural history

Professor Nandini Das OBE
Das in 2025 at the British Museum
Born	1974 (age 50–51) Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Occupation(s)	Academic and literary scholar
Title	Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture
Academic background
Alma mater	Jadavpur University University College, Oxford Trinity College, Cambridge
Thesis	Romance and the development of prose fiction in Renaissance England
Institutions	University of Liverpool Exeter College, Oxford

Nandini Das (born November 1974) ^[1] is professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture in the English faculty at the University of Oxford. She is a specialist in Shakespeare studies, Renaissance romance writing, early travel literature, and encounters between different cultures.

Early life

Nandini Das grew up in India and studied the sciences at school, and after working as a software programmer in the publishing industry for a year, decided to return to academic research. Aged about 10, she was inspired by seeing Vanessa Redgrave in William Shakespeare's As You Like It on Indian television. ^[2] She earned a BA in English from Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India, after which she moved to Britain on a Rhodes scholarship to study English at University College, Oxford (BA). She subsequently earned her M.Phil and PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge. ^[3]

Career

Das was professor of English literature at the University of Liverpool until October 2019, when she became a Tutorial Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford and Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture in the English faculty at Oxford. ^[4] Her research relates to cultural and intellectual history for the period 1600 to 1750 including fiction, accounts of early travel and encounters between different cultures. ^{[5] [6]}

She has edited a scholarly edition of Robert Greene's Planetomachia (1585) in 2007 and is the volume editor for Elizabethan Levant trade and South Asia of Richard Hakluyt's 'Principall Navigations, Voyages, Traffikes, and Discoveries of the English Nation. ^[5]

She is project director of the Travel, Transculturality and Identity in England, c.1550-1700 (TIDE) project. ^[7]

She is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy, ^[5] a member of the council of Research England, and a member of the Peer Review College of Britain's Arts and Humanities Research Council. ^[3] Das is also a trustee and council member of the Society for Renaissance Studies. ^[8]

In September 2018, she presented Tales of Tudor Travel: The Explorer's Handbook on BBC Four. ^[9] She has appeared as an expert commentator in the historical documentaries Henry VIII (2020) for Channel 5 and The Boleyns: A Scandalous Family (2021) for BBC Two. ^[10]

Honours and awards

Das' book Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire won the 2023 British Academy Book Prize. ^{[11] [12] [13]} It was also shortlisted for the 2024 Wolfson History Prize. ^[14]

Das was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the 2025 New Year Honours for services to interdisciplinary research in the humanities and public engagement. ^[15]

Selected publications

• Nandini Das (2023). Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire. Bloomsbury. ISBN   9781526615640. ^{[16] [17] [18]}
• Nandini Das, ed. (2022). Lives in Transit in Early Modern England: Identity and Belonging. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. ISBN   9789463725989.
• Nandini Das; João Vicente Melo; Haig Z. Smith; Lauren Working (2021). Keywords of Identity, Race, and Human Mobility in Early Modern England. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. ISBN   9789463720748.
• Nandini Das; Tim Youngs, eds. (2018). The Cambridge History of Travel Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9781316556740.
• Nandini Das, ed. (2017). Hakluyt's Principall Navigations, Voyages, Traffikes, and Discoveries of the English Nation, 1598-1600. Volume VI: Elizabethan Levant Trade and South Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Nandini Das; Nick Davis, eds. (2016). Enchantment and Dis-enchantment in Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama. Routledge. ISBN   9780367175764.
• Nandini Das; John Batchelor, eds. (2011). Travel and Prose Fiction in Early Modern England. Yearbook of English Studies. Leeds: MHRA. ISBN   9781907322235.
• Renaissance Romance: The Transformation of English Prose Fiction, 1570-1620. Farnham: Ashgate. 2011. ISBN   9781409410133.
• Nandini Das (2007). Nandini Das (ed.). Robert Greene's Planetomachia. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN   9781315244037.

References

1. "Nandini Das Personal Appointments". Companies House. Retrieved 23 June 2025.
2. Profile with Nandini Das. The Rhodes Project, 2013. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
3. Professor Nandini Das. Research England. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
4. Professor Das' profile, Exeter College, University of Oxford
5. Prof Nandini Das. University of Oxford. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
6. "Scholar - Women Also Know History". Womenalsoknowhistory.com. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
7. "People". Tideproject.uk. 9 October 2016. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
8. "Council Members". Society for Renaissance Studies. Archived from the original on 2 June 2025. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
9. "Tales of Tudor Travel: The Explorer's Handbook - BBC Four". BBC. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
10. "Professor Das to appear in new BBC series on the Boleyn family". Exeter College, Oxford. 3 August 2021. Retrieved 2 July 2024.
11. "'Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire' by Nandini Das wins the £25,000 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding 2023". The British Academy. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
12. PTI (1 November 2023). "India-born author Nandini Das wins 2023 British Academy Book Prize". The Hindu. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 19 November 2023.
13. "Author Nandini Das wins British honours British honour". The Tribune.
14. "2024 Wolfson History Prize shortlist announced". The Wolfson History Prize. 22 September 2024. Retrieved 24 September 2024.
15. "New Year Honours 2025". University of Oxford. Retrieved 31 December 2024.
16. Kaicker, Abhishek (7 April 2023). "The Clash of Civilizations That Heralded a Rocky Relationship". The New York Times.
17. "Review | What a visiting Brit thought of early 1600s India". Washington Post. 17 April 2023. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 19 November 2023.
18. Dalrymple, William (16 March 2023). "Courting India — the unpromising origins of British power". Financial Times. Retrieved 19 November 2023.