
Professor Javed Majeed
Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Research interests
- Literature
Contact details
Biography
Javed Majeed read English Language and Literature at Magdalen College Oxford (1981-84) where he also did his DPhil (1984-88). He was a research fellow at Churchill College Cambridge (1988-92) and the Smuts Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge (1989-92). He taught at SOAS and Queen Mary University of London, before moving to KCL in 2012 as Professor of English and Comparative Literature. His monographs are Ungoverned Imaginings: James Mill’s the History of British India and Orientalism (1992), Autobiography, Travel and Postnational Identity: Gandhi, Nehru, and Iqbal (2007), Muhammad Iqbal: Islam, Aesthetics and Postcolonialism (2009), and his two-volume study Nation and Region in Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India and Colonialism and Knowledge in Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India (2019). He is the author of 38 peer-reviewed essays on South Asian literature, politics, and intellectual history. His current research project is on Common law and the cultural politics of Englishness He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2021.
Research interests and PhD supervision
Research interests
- British colonialism in India
- Intellectual and literary history of modern South Asia
- Language politics in South Asia
- Politics and literature in South Asia
- Islam and colonialism in India
My current research project is on Common law and the Cultural Politics of Englishness.
Current PhD supervision
- Language and Belonging in 20th century Assam
- Indian Muslim travelogues in the 19th century
- Medico-literary texts in 19th century Tamil Nadu
- Biopics of political leaders in Indian cinema 1923-2023 (co-supervision with NUS)
- Cultures of Print and Reading in modern Kerala (co-supervision with JNU)
For more details, please see his full research profile.
Teaching
I teach in the areas of colonial and psotcolonial literature, politics, translation studies, and history with a focus on India/South Asia.
Selected publications
- 'Beyond hegemonic binaries: English and the "vernaculars" in post-liberalization India', in Language Ideologies and the Vernaculars in South Asia, ed. N. Zaidi et al, (Routledge, 2024), pp. 17-32.
- ‘Multilingualism and management studies in South Asia’, in Managing the Post-Colony: Ways of Organising, Managing, and Living, ed. Nimruji Jammulamadaka et al, (Springer, 2022), pp. 39-58.
- ‘Literature of Empire: difference, creativity, and cosmopolitanism’, in Oxford World History of Empire, vol. 1, ed. Peter Fibiger Bang el al (OUP, 2021), pp. 342-81.
- Nation and Region in Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India (Routledge, 2019).
- Colonialism and Knowledge in Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India (Routledge, 2019).
Research
Empires and Decolonizations Research Hub
Aiming to bring together those at King’s interested in the history of empires, across all periods - ancient and modern.

Critical Economic and Political Thought
The group approaches the study of politics and economics from critical cultural perspectives including, but not limited to, history, literature, visual culture, performance and social activism.
News
Four King's academics elected as British Academy Fellows
The British Academy has elected four King’s academics as new Fellows

International Workshop on National Multilingualism reveals connections between Horn of Africa and South Asia
A two-day workshop, attended by scholars from multiple universities across the globe, revealed the challenges and opportunities created by multilingualism in...

Research
Empires and Decolonizations Research Hub
Aiming to bring together those at King’s interested in the history of empires, across all periods - ancient and modern.

Critical Economic and Political Thought
The group approaches the study of politics and economics from critical cultural perspectives including, but not limited to, history, literature, visual culture, performance and social activism.
News
Four King's academics elected as British Academy Fellows
The British Academy has elected four King’s academics as new Fellows

International Workshop on National Multilingualism reveals connections between Horn of Africa and South Asia
A two-day workshop, attended by scholars from multiple universities across the globe, revealed the challenges and opportunities created by multilingualism in...
