Epsita Halder is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. She works on the urban formations of Muharram traditions in Bengal focusing on the anthropology of sonic and visual piety. She received an art research and documentation grant from India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore, to work on Muharram. She was the visiting fellow at the Max Weber Kolleg, University of Erfurt, Germany, and at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She edited and co-translated   Abul Bashar’s short stories from Bangla in The Open-Winged Scorpion and Other Stories(Seagull, 2021). Her monograph, Reclaiming Karbala: Nation, Islam and Literature of the Bengali Muslims (Routledge, 2023), has received a book award from the Indian History Congress. She is a columnist for the Bengali newspapers.