Anjali DasSarma is an ABD PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.

Her dissertation research elucidates the history of unfreedom in early American newspapers—with a particular focus on unfree Indigenous people—to better understand the nexus of journalism history, colonialism, and capitalism. The first half of her thesis is historical, contending with evidence of Indigenous unfreedom in early journalism as an expropriative triple theft from 1704 to 1865. The second half of her dissertation deals with recent history and contemporary media responses to history, charting the resonance of the past through expressions of regret, apology, and repair in 20th and 21st century journalism including the Kerner Report and 2020’s flood of apologies. She makes this turn to contemporary journalism through a methodological intervention—what DasSarma terms journalism-history-as-palimpsest—by combining conjucture and longue durée to think of journalism history as a series of layers wherein we can see the past and present of journalism at the same time.

Her research is focused on journalism histories for the sake of critical and radical journalism futures, with a strong focus on media reparations and decolonial/anti-colonial movements.

Originally trained as a journalist, she wrote for various outlets for eight years, which inspired her research in academia.

When she’s not reading for classes or for pleasure, you can find her playing guitar and bass, and reading Joan Didion.

Please reach out at dassarma@upenn.edu for questions or media queries.