Poorvi Bellur studies global anticolonial solidarities and conceptions of imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a focus on British Empire in South Asia and the Middle East. Her research broadly deals with the construct of political and cultural “solidarity” in the context of the Global South, and the modern historical genealogy of the concept. She is particularly interested in exploring archives of press, literature and performance in order to broaden current scholarship on global anticolonial networks beyond tracing political elites in favour of an understanding of global intellectual histories from below.

Poorvi graduated from Columbia University in 2019 with a BA in History. Before coming to Princeton, she completed an MPhil in World History from the University of Cambridge in 2020. Her master’s thesis focused on Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and the networks of anticolonial intellectual exchange he navigated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Outside of her research she is interested in all things education, with a specific interest in museum education and historical pedagogy, and has interned for several public history educational initiatives.