Poorvi Bellur is a doctoral candidate studying global anticolonial solidarities and conceptions of imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a focus on British Empire in South Asia and Egypt. 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 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.

Before coming to Princeton, Poorvi 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 critically examining historical pedagogy and widening access to higher education and is involved with initiatives such as Princeton’s Global History Lab and the Emma Bloomberg Center for Access and Opportunity. She also currently serves as the Executive Director of the Toynbee Prize Foundation.