Dr Sarah Jilani

Overview

Dr Sarah Jilani is a Lecturer in English at City, University of London, who teaches Anglophone postcolonial literatures and world film on a number of BA and MA modules with a particular focus on race, gender, and the legacies of colonialism. As a freelance writer on contemporary art, books and film, she regularly contributes to The Economist, The Times Literary Supplement and ArtReview amongst others, and appears on BBC Radio 3 as a 2021 BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.

After studying for a BA English at the University of York and an MSt in English at the University of Oxford, Sarah worked in digital strategy and journalism in London. In 2017 she joined the University of Cambridge as a PhD candidate in the Faculty of English, jointly funded by the AHRC and the Isaac Newton Trust. Supervised by Professor Priyamvada Gopal, her doctoral thesis studied how post-independence (1950s-80s) novels and films from Africa and South Asia help us understand subjectivity as politically important to the project of decolonisation.

Sarah's research interests include subjectivity, gender and political consciousness in postcolonial theory, literatures and film; she has published on a range of related topics, from neocolonialism in Francophone West African cinema to women's writing about the Nigerian Civil War. A monograph based on her doctoral thesis is forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press in 2023.

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, Oct 2017 – Jul 2021
• MSt English (1900-Present), University of Oxford, United Kingdom, Sep 2012 – Jul 2013
• BA (Hons) English and Related Literature, University of York, United Kingdom, Sep 2009 – Jul 2012

Employment

• Lecturer, City, University of London, Sep 2021 – present
• 2021 New Generation Thinker, British Broadcasting Corporation (United Kingdom), Mar 2021 – present
• Associate Lecturer, Anglia Ruskin University, Sep 2019 – Feb 2020
• Postcolonial and Related Literatures Paper Supervisor, University of Cambridge, Jan 2019 – Jul 2021
• Dissertation Supervisor, University of Cambridge, Sep 2018 – Jul 2021
• Literary translator (Turkish–English), Various, Mar 2017 – present
• Freelance writer, Various, Dec 2014 – present

Languages

French (can read, write, speak and understand spoken) and Turkish (can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review).

Expertise

Geographic Areas

• Africa
• Asia - South Central
• Middle East

Publications by category