Karthik Shankar

Karthik Shankar is a PhD student in English at the University of Virginia. His PhD project focuses on queer theory and environmental humanities across South Asia and the Middle East. He was a Chevening scholar for 2020-2021 at SOAS, University of London, where he graduated with a Master’s in comparative literature. His dissertation looked at trans corporeality in Indian Anglophone fiction. Karthik has previously worked as a writing instructor and teaching assistant with the English department at Ashoka University, Delhi. He was also part of the inaugural team that helped set up the JCB Prize for Literature in 2018. He has also worked as an independent journalist for a variety of publications and has been the recipient of a number of awards including the Likho Award for Excellence in Media from Humsafar Trust, India’s largest queer rights organisation, and the Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation’s Young Writer’s Grant.

Karthik Shankar was awarded the 2023 Wasafiri Essay Prize for his impressively argued and important essay, ‘Spectral Trans Figures: The Ambiguous and Atemporal Hijra Body in Narcopolis‘, which was published in Wasafiri 117: The State of the Industry.