Dr. Uma Maheswari Bhrugubanda is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) Hyderabad. She received her M.A and PhD in Socio-cultural Anthropology from Columbia University. She also has an M.A and M.Phil in English from the University of Hyderabad. She is the author of Deities and Devotees: Cinema, Religion and Politics in South India (Oxford University Press, 2018). She is the co-editor and co-author of A World of Equals: A Textbook on Gender (Orient Blackswan, 2021) and has also co-edited a translation work, Vegetarians Only: Stories of Telugu Muslims (Orient Blackswan, 2016). Her scholarly articles and reviews have appeared in academic journals like Bioscope: South Asian Screen Studies, Critical Quarterly, Indian International Centre Quarterly, Economic and Political Weekly and Contributions to Indian Sociology. She has also contributed chapters to several edited volumes.

Her areas of interest are cultural studies, cultural history, feminist theory, gender studies, film studies, sound studies, Telugu language, literature and cinema, and translation theory and practice. She is currently working on two research projects—one on the history of women in early South Indian cinema and two, the politics and aesthetics of contemporary Telugu cinema.

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles: