Anjali is a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.
Her work examines both the cultural studies and political economy of journalism, centering journalists as actors in the production of knowledge, norms, and history and as well as structures of media power, capitalism, and hegemony.
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 engulfed in newspaper archives, playing guitar and bass, and reading Joan Didion.
RESEARCH FOCUS
Journalism and media history, colonialism, critical archival studies, print capitalism, memory and ephemerality
EDUCATION
Ph.D. in Communication, University of Pennsylvania
August 2022- Expected May 2027
⋆ Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Innovation, Certificate
⋆ Archival Methodology, Certificate
Proposed Dissertation Title:
- Journalism & Expropriation: Interrogating Colonialism, Cultural Power, and Capitalism in Early American Newspapers
M.A. in Communication, University of Pennsylvania
August 2022- May 2024
M.A. in American Studies, Brown University
August 2021- May 2022
B.A. in Media and Communication Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Minor in Journalism
August 2017- May 2021
[King’s College London, Semester Abroad, September 2019- December 2019]
PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES
- DasSarma, A. (2026). The Sinews of Colonial Hypocrisy: Indigenous Unfreedom in Newspaper Advertisements in 1776. Journalism History, 10.1080/00947679.2026.2655269. https://doi.org/10.1080/00947679.2026.2655269
- DasSarma, A., & Proust, V. (2025). “We Want Entire Freedom:” The New Orleans Tribune and the Formation of Counterpublics Through Affective Discourse. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 10776990251332897. https://doi.org/10.1177/10776990251332897
- DasSarma, A. (2024). Truth-making, slavery and advertising in early Anglo-American newspapering: Publick Occurrences and the Boston News-Letter. In Journal of Alternative & Community Media (Vol. 9, Issue Media, Justice and Equality, pp. 103–118). Intellect. https://doi.org/10.1386/jacm_00131_1
- DasSarma, A., & Fisher, L. D. (2023). The Persistence of Indigenous Unfreedom in Early American Newspaper Advertisements, 1704–1804. Slavery & Abolition, 44:2, 267-291. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2023.2189517
RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS
Research Fellow with Prof. Barbie Zelizer, University of Pennsylvania, January 2025 – May 2025
Research Fellow with Prof. Victor Pickard, University of Pennsylvania, August 2024 – December 2024
Research Fellow, Media 2070, January 2023 – August 2024
COMPASS Fellow, Free Press, June 2024 – August 2024
Research Fellow with Prof. Sarah Jackson, University of Pennsylvania and Free Press, August 2023 – December 2023
Research Fellow with Prof. Barbie Zelizer, University of Pennsylvania, January 2023 – May 2023
Research Fellow with Prof. Joseph Turow, University of Pennsylvania, August 2022 – December 2023
Research Assistant with Prof. Linford Fisher, Brown University, August 2021 – May 2022
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Co-Instructor of Record with Prof. Barbie Zelizer, University of Pennsylvania, January 2026 – May 2026
- COMM 3390: Critical Perspectives in Journalism.
- Topics: critical journalism history, memory studies, visuality, textual studies
Invited guest lecture on digital archives and ephemerality, Critical Archival Literacies Class, Prof. Katie Rawson and Prof. Samantha Summerbell, April 2026
Invited guest lecture on immediacy, technology, and journalism history, Digital Journalism, Prof. Nelanthi Hewa, February 2026
Teaching Fellow with Prof. Barbie Zelizer, University of Pennsylvania, January 2024 – May 2024
- COMM 3390: Critical Perspectives in Journalism.
- Topics: critical journalism history and digital news ephemerality
Teaching Fellow with Prof. Nelanthi Hewa, University of Pennsylvania, August 2025 – December 2025
- COMM 2320: Gender and Media
- Topics: gender and feminist studies, media studies
Invited guest lecture on slavery, journalism, and reparations, Critical Perspectives in Journalism, Prof. Barbie Zelizer, February 2025
Instructor of Record, Chestnut Hill College, January 2025 – May 2025
- MCOM 230: Media Literacy
- Topics: media power, ownership, political economy
Course Assistant with Prof. Linford Fisher, Brown University, January 2022 – May 2022
- HIST 1970G: Captive Voices: Atlantic Slavery in the Digital Age.
- Topics: slavery, kinship, and archives
CENTER AFFILIATIONS
Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Media at Risk, University of Pennsylvania, September 2022 – Present
- Assisted in planning the 2023 & 2024 Annual Symposia
Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication, University of Pennsylvania, October 2022 – Present
- Assisted in planning the 2025 Annual Symposium
Doctoral Fellow at the Media Inequality and Change Center, University of Pennsylvania, November 2022 – Present
EVENTS & SYMPOSIA ORGANIZED
Organizer, Tour: “The Time to Right All Wrongs,” Penn Libraries, University of Pennsylvania, April 2026
Organizer, Book Talk: Stealing America with Linford D. Fisher, Media Inequality and Change Center and Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication, Annenberg School for Communication, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 2026
Organizer, Tour: Autumn in the Archives, Penn Libraries, University of Pennsylvania, October 2025
Moderator and Organizer, 2025 CARGC Fellows Biennial Conference: Unsettling Global Media and Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 2025
Moderator and Organizer, Presidential Endorsements: A Dying Journalistic Practice?, Annenberg School for Communication, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 2025
Moderator and Organizer, Academe in the Age of Social Media: Scholarly Inquiry at Risk?, Annenberg School for Communication, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 2024
Organizer, 2024 Workshop Series: Introduction to Archival Methodology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March – April 2024
Organizing, Union for Democratic Communication, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 2023
PEER-REVIEWED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Paper, The Sinews of Colonial Hypocrisy: Indigenous Unfreedom in Newspaper Advertisements in 1776, University College London, London, England, July 2026 (forthcoming)
Paper, Newspaper Expropriation: Interrogating Colonialism, Cultural Power, and Capitalism in Anglo-America, Galway, Ireland, June/July 2026 (forthcoming)
Roundtable panelist, Against Inevitability: Reflections on History and Futurity in American Studies Pedagogy, Glasgow, Scotland, April 2026, with Maxi Wardcantori and Linford Fisher
Paper, The Post-Mortem Mea Culpa: Trouillot’s Abortive Ritual and Journalism’s “Racial Reckoning,” Race and Media Conference, Leeds, England, April 2026
Chair of Roundtable, Politics, Power, and Practice in Print Culture, American Studies Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico, November 2025, with Joseph Torres, Zaina Ujayli, Laura E. Smith, Jaakko Dickman
Paper, Contesting the Past: Graduate Student Workshop, Andrea Mitchell Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 2025
Paper, They Come to Eat Us: The Figurative Cannibalistic Other and the Construction of Immigrants in Media Narratives, International Communication Association, Denver, Colorado, June 2025, with Valentina Proust
Panelist, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: Capitalism and the Media, International Communication Association, Denver, Colorado, June 2025, with Des Freedman, Victor Pickard, David Hesmondhalgh, Zhongwei Li
Panel Organizer and Presenter, Geographies of Indigenous Enslavement in the Americas, American Historical Association, New York City, New York, January 2025, with Linford Fisher, Rebecca Goetz, Alexandre Pelegrino, Leila Blackbird
Paper, “We Want Entire Freedom:” The New Orleans Tribune and The Formation of Counterpublics Through Affective Discourse, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, August 2024, with Valentina Proust
Invited Presenter, Narratives of White Normativity and the Political Economy of Slavery: Revisiting Publick Occurrences, The Boston News-Letter, and the Origin Story of America’s Early Press, Rethinking our Communicative Pasts: Reparatory and Radical Perspectives, London, England, April 2024
Organizer, Center for Media at Risk and Annenberg C3 Symposium: When Media Put Social Justice at Risk, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 2023
Social Media, Turning Points: The Long 1990s in Internet History, Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 2023
Paper, White Normativity, Slavery, and “the Charming of that Spirit of Lying”: Revisiting Publick Occurrences and the Origin Story of America’s Early Press, International Association for Media and Communication Research, Lyon, France, July 2023
Paper, “We are deeply and profoundly sorry:” A case study in querying efficacy of institutional apologies for perpetuated racism, International Communication Association, Toronto, Canada, May 2023
Attendee with post-reflection, Imagining the Online as the Offline: Metrics, Journalism, History, and Teetering at the Abyss, Milton Wolf Seminar, Vienna, Austria, April 2023
Paper, Structures of Power and Sites of Resistance: Repositioning and Retelling the History of the Earliest Newspapers in “America,” Lisbon Winter School, January 2023
Poster, The Persistence of Indigenous Unfreedom in Early American Newspaper Ads, 1704–1804 at the American Historical Association 2023 Conference, January 2023, with Professor Linford Fisher
Paper, Relinquishing the “Newness” from the News: Historicizing Hegemonic Journalism’s Relationships with Truth, Whiteness, Slavery, and Ethics at the 2022 American Studies Graduate Conference at Brown University, May 2022
ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP
DasSarma, A. (2025). Disability, Solidarity and Possibility – Center for Media at Risk and Media [Broadcast]. Retrieved from https://www.ascmediarisk.org/media/disability-solidarity-and-possibility/
DasSarma, A. (2024). Racial Capitalism, Journalism History, Liberated Futures: A Conversation with Joseph Torres – Center for Media at Risk and Media, Inequality & Change Center [Broadcast]. Retrieved from https://www.ascmediarisk.org/media/racial-capitalism-journalism-history-liberated-futures-a-conversation-with-joseph-torres/
DasSarma, A., & Gill, S. (2024). Neoliberalism and the University, Part 1– Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication. [Broadcast]. Retrieved from https://newbooksnetwork.com/neoliberalism-and-the-university-part-1
DasSarma, A., & Gill, S. (2024). Neoliberalism and the University, Part 2 – Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication. [Broadcast]. Retrieved from https://newbooksnetwork.com/neoliberalism-and-the-university-part-2
DasSarma, A. (2023). The Eastern Echo & The Umpire: Contextualizing The Penal Press of Eastern State Penitentiary – Center for Media at Risk. https://www.ascmediarisk.org/media/the-eastern-echo-and-the-umpire-contextualizing-the-penal-press-of-eastern-state-penitentiary/
DasSarma, A., Dillard, C., Gill, S., Isch, C., Mbock, N., Muzekari, B., Probol, D., Proust, V., Teliz Martinez, S.A., Smith, T. L., Ye, Q., . Building a National Memorial to Journalists Who Died in Pursuit of the Truth. A Report Commissioned by the Fallen Journalists Foundation, May 9, 2023.
MEMBERSHIPS / AFFILIATIONS
American Studies Association (2025-present)
International Association for Media and Communication Research (2023-present)
International Communication Association (2023-present)
American Historical Association (2022-2024)
Asian American Journalists Association (2020-2021)
HONORS / AWARDS / GRANTS
Awarded Bursary Grant from the British Association of American Studies (March 2026)
Awarded third place in Journalism History’s 2025-26 essay competition (February 2026)
Elected Secretary of the International Communication Association’s Philosophy Theory and Critique division (October 2025, serving from June 2026-June 2027)
Recipient of 2025 AHA Annual Meeting Travel Grant (January 2025)
Awarded Top Extended Abstract for “We Want Entire Freedom:” The New Orleans Tribune and The Formation of Counterpublics Through Affective Discourse, with Valentina Proust (August 2024)
Appointed as Social Chair, Graduate Council, Annenberg School for Communication (2023-2025)
Selected as an Emerging Scholar Fellow to the Milton Wolf Seminar in Vienna Austria (April 2023)
Elected to the Events Committee, Annenberg School for Communication (2022-2023)
Elected Humanities Senator, UMBC (2017-2021)
SERVICE
Invited Presenter, Career Foundations: PhD Perspectives on Industry Internships and Consulting Programs Panel, October 2025
Peer Reviewer, Journalism
Peer Reviewer, UMBC Review
TRAINING
Completed Social/Behavioral Research Course through the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (2022)
Completed Brown University’s Teaching Essentials for Graduate TAs (2021)
PRESS COVERAGE
Shahed, S. (2025, March 31). Annenberg School graduate students host panel on future of presidential endorsements in journalism. The Daily Pennsylvanian. https://www.thedp.com/article/2025/03/penn-journalism-presidential-endorsements-event
Moser, E. (2025, January 14). Addressing the ‘Catch-22’ Academics Face on Social Media | Annenberg. Penn Today. https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/addressing-catch-22-academics-face-social-media
Reissman, H. (2023, April 18). A Century of Newspaper Ads Shed Light on Indigenous Slavery in Colonial America | Annenberg. https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/century-newspaper-ads-shed-light-indigenous-slavery-colonial-america
PROFESSIONAL/NON-ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE
Editor-in-Chief, The Retriever Weekly, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, May 2020 – May 2021
Noted Adviser, The Wall Street Journal, June 2020 – May 2021
Maryland-Delaware-DC Reese Cleghorn Editorial Intern, The Baltimore Sun, June 2020 – August 2020
Opinions Editor, The Retriever Weekly, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, February 2019 – May 2020
Ambassador, Study Abroad Office, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, September 2019- December 2019
Communications Intern, Newseum, September 2018 – January 2019
Reporter, UMBC Alumni Magazine, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, May 2018 – December 2018
Digital Marketing Intern, Division of Professional Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, January 2018 – August 2018
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Represented the University of Maryland, Baltimore County at the College Media Association conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota (June 2020)
Invited to speak at the Howard County Community College newspaper (HCC Times) retreat (August 2020)
Invited to speak at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Media and Communications Council of Majors panel on internship success (October 2020)
Established The Retriever Weekly Advisory Board with outstanding journalists from the Washington DC-Baltimore community
Article selected for syndication by the Associated Press Wire published in 54 newspapers across the United States and abroad
Student representative within administrative COVID-19 pandemic planning meetings at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education for work as a student journalist during the pandemic
REFERENCES
Available upon request.