Dr Anushrut Ramakrishnan Agrwaal
Research Fellow
Research areas
Anushrut Ramakrishnan Agrwaal is a film and media historian. Since 2023 he has been working as an Associate Lecturer at the University of St Andrews. From June 2025 he will take up the position of the Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the AHRC-DFG funded "Relocating Filmstrips, Remapping Europe" project, at St Andrews. His research interests include nineteenth and twentieth century British educational and visual culture, non-theatrical film and media, film technologies, science and cinema, colonial cinema, media materiality.
Anushrut's current book project, Watch and Learn: Film and British Education c.1900 examines how cinema and other media technologies, such as the magic lantern and print, shaped early-twentieth-century British education. Based on extensive archival research, he explores the socio-cultural, economic, intellectual, and technological reasons that governed the media use of institutions of scientific and religious education.
Building on his research Anushrut will work on the use of filmstips as an instructional and political media technology across Europe in the twentieth century. He is currently also researching glass as a media object. Here he is examining what the material and metaphorical uses of glass in British screen media – film, television, digital media – reveal about the class hierarchies, colonial legacies, gender discriminations, and environmental degradations embedded within British visual culture.
Selected publications
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Open access
Material and Metaphor: Glass and British screen media
Ramakrishnan Agrwaal, A., 10 Jun 2025, Bill Douglas Cinema Museum Blog.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article
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The War Face Off-Screen: Catalogue descriptions, imperial interpellations, and reading on- and off-screen faces in British Boer War films
Ramakrishnan Agrwaal, A., 11 Dec 2025, (Accepted/In press) War Faces on Screen : Photography, Film, and the Politics of Representation. Parry, K. & King Sharpe, M. (eds.). London: BloomsburyResearch output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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A history of writing in visual media cultures
Ramakrishnan Agrwaal, A., 24 Mar 2024, Bill Douglas Cinema Museum Blog.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article
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Kammatograph
Ramakrishnan Agrwaal, A., Jul 2024, https://www.filmatlas.com/entry/33. Layton, J. (ed.). Brussels; Rochester: International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF); George Eastman MuseumResearch output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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The picture postcard: a new window into Edwardian Ireland
Ramakrishnan Agrwaal, A., 1 Feb 2023, In: Early Popular Visual Culture. 21, 1, p. 179-181 3 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review
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Open access
A preface with promise: revisiting Film Curatorship: Archives, Museums, and the Digital Marketplace
Ramakrishnan Agrwaal, A., 1 Apr 2022, In: Frames Cinema Journal. 19, p. 315-317 3 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review › peer-review
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Everyday Movies: Portable Projectors and the Transformation of American Culture by Haidee Wasson
Ramakrishnan Agrwaal, A., 6 Jul 2022, In: Screen. 63, 2, p. 264-267 4 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review › peer-review
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A million pictures: magic lantern slides in the history of learning
Ramakrishnan Agrwaal, A., 4 Mar 2021, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Early Popular Visual Culture. 19, 1, p. 98-101 4 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review › peer-review
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Open access
Transnational Archiving and Restoration: Focus on South East Asia: Asian Archives Dossier
Iordanova, D., Gelardi, A., Ramakrishnan Agrwaal, A., Deocampo, N., Chan, K., Chitoressanee, S. & Cheng, B., 19 Jun 2020, In: Frames Cinema Journal. Issue 17Research output: Contribution to journal › Special issue