Manu Samriti Chander received his M.F.A. from the University of Michigan in 2001 and his Ph.D. from Brown University in 2009.  He has taught at NYU, Barnard College, and, most recently, Harvard University. 

Bringing a background in creative writing to the study of literature, Manu emphasizes the writerly strategies—the line breaks and alliterations, metaphors and tonal shifts—by means of which authors represent and reimagine history.  He is chiefly interested in teaching students to simultaneously appreciate and interrogate literary language, to recognize the greatness of great works and challenge the very notion of "greatness" that shapes our assumptions about art and culture.

Manu specializes in British Romanticism and Postcolonialism and is particularly interested in the thematic and theoretical intersections between these two fields.  His courses cover such topics as multiculturalism, South Asian literature, art and controversy, and the craft of writing.