Projects per year
Personal profile
Research interests
Dr Aakanksha J. Virkar specialises in modern literature and culture between 1870-1945 and particularly the relations between literature, philosophy, music and visual culture in this period.
Her more recent research on T. S. Eliot considers Eliot's work in interdiscplinary contexts. She is particularly interested in Eliot's relation to Beethoven, and the artistic, philosophical and political reception of the composer in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
From 2024-2025, Aakanksha has been awarded a prestigious British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for her project 'T. S. Eliot and Beethoven: Aesthetics, Music and Politics 1870-1945'.
Her 2024 open access article in the Journal of Modern Literature https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/article/916896 explores Eliot's Beethoven-inspired 'Coriolan' series (1932) in light of the 1902 Beethoven art exhibition of the Vienna Secession and fascist cultural ideology in the 1920s and 1930s.
Aakanksha is also a Research Fellow (2023-2026) at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London and is working on a joint monograph on T. S. Eliot and Beethoven with the musicologist Prof Daniel Chua (Hong Kong University).
For the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth, Aakanksha was an invited guest on BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week' for the 'Beethoven Unleashed' series. Her interview ('Spirit of the Age' Episode 5: 'Legacy and Belief') is available here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/37916tSXw7s3CRcj9FZjpyq/beethoven-unleashed-the-box-set
Her earlier work on the Victorian poet G. M. Hopkins has also gained recognition. Her article on Hopkins and emblematics was ranked amongst the 50 Most Read articles published by ‘Literature and Theology’ (OUP) between 2007-2012. Her monograph The Philosophical Mysticism of Gerard Manley Hopkins (2018) is published in the Routledge Nineteenth Century Series.
Reviews of The Philosophical Mysticism of Gerard Manley Hopkins
“this is a lovely and lovingly realized book that participates in the ongoing so-called turn to religion in Victorian studies in its reassessment of Victorian mysticism and Hopkins’s place in the mystical tradition. Each of its chapters is quickpaced and tightly written, rapidly moving the reader across centuries’ worth of textual, religious, and visual materials… a testament to [Virkar] Yates’s success in capturing the dynamism and profundity of her subject matter” ---- Winter Jade Werner, Victorian Studies 62.1 (2019): 154-156 (Review)
"Close reading of Hopkins’ never less than challenging verse is pursued in this book with theological rigour and learning in a manner that will ensure that it will become a central resource in scholarship on the finest of late nineteenth century English poets… a work of fine scholarship, theologically learned and poetically sensitive, and yet at the same time spiritually acute and attentive to the delicate, complex world of Hopkins and his writings. This is a book to be treasured and pondered upon." ---- Professor David Jasper, Literature and Theology (OUP)
Scholarly biography
Aakanksha Virkar completed her doctorate at the University of Sussex, prior to which she was a Commonwealth scholar at the University of Cambridge, a recipient of a full scholarship from the Nehru Trust for Cambridge University.
Supervisory Interests
Aakanksha is happy to supervise postgraduate work on late Victorian and modern literature. She has specific interests in literary modernism and would particularly welcome projects exploring literature and the arts (music and visual culture).
Specific areas within literary studies (1850-1950) might include
- Victorian/modern transitions
- philosophy, aesthetics and politics in modern literature
- poetry and poetics
- literature, music and visual culture
- aestheticism, decadence and desire
Education/Academic qualification
PhD, The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, University of Sussex
Award Date: 1 Jan 2010
Master, English Literature, University of Cambridge
Award Date: 30 Jun 2006
Bachelor, English Literature, University of Cambridge
1 Oct 2000 → 29 Jun 2002
Award Date: 29 Jun 2002
Bachelor, English Literature, University of Bombay
Award Date: 30 May 2000
External positions
British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship, British Academy
1 Sept 2024 → 31 Aug 2025
IES Advisory Council, Member, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
1 Jun 2024 → 1 Jun 2027
Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
1 Oct 2023 → 1 Oct 2026
Panel Member, UKRI Interdisciplinary Assessment College (IAC), UKRI
1 Sept 2023 → 1 Sept 2025
Board Member, International T. S. Eliot Society
1 Jul 2022 → 1 Jul 2026
Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College Member, Arts and Humanities Research Council
1 Mar 2022 → 31 Dec 2025
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- 1 Similar Profiles
Projects
- 1 Active
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T. S. Eliot and Beethoven: Aesthetics, Music and Politics 1870-1945
Virkar, A. (PI)
1/09/24 → 31/08/25
Project: Research Councils / Government Depts.
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Max Klinger’s Beethoven (1902), Nietzsche’s Übermensch and the anti-fascist poetics of T. S. Eliot’s Coriolan I “Triumphal March” (1931)
Virkar, A., 12 Jan 2024, In: Journal of Modern Literature. 47, 1, p. 1-24 24 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
T. S. Eliot and the "Gesamtkunstwerk" or "Total Work of Art"
Virkar, A., 11 Mar 2024, The Routledge Companion to Literature and Art. Murphy, N., Wang, W. M. & Lee, C. J. (eds.). London: Routledge, 13 p. (Routledge Literature Companions).Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceeding with ISSN or ISBN › Chapter
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"Heart of Light": Emily Hale and 'The Birth of Tragedy' in 'The Waste Land'
Virkar, A., 1 Mar 2022, In: The T. S. Eliot Studies Annual . 4, 1, p. 43 - 55 12 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile -
Beethoven: Legacy and Belief (Radio 3 Composer of the Week)
Virkar Yates, A., 25 Sept 2020Research output: Non-textual output › Digital or Visual Products
File -
Beethoven 250: How the composer's music embodies the Enlightenment philosophy of freedom
Virkar Yates, A., 16 Dec 2020, The Conversation Trust, UK.Research output: Other contribution
Open Access
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T. S. Eliot, Beethoven and Hitler
Virkar, A. (Presenter)
12 Jul 2025Activity: External talk or presentation › Invited talk
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T. S. Eliot, Mein Kampf and Nazi Kulturpolitik
Virkar, A. (Presenter)
20 Sept 2024Activity: External talk or presentation › Oral presentation
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T. S. Eliot International Society Conference
Virkar, A. (Member of programme committee)
22 Sept 2023 → 24 Sept 2023Activity: Events › Conference
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UKRI Interdisciplinary Assessment College (External organisation)
Virkar, A. (Member)
1 Sept 2023 → 1 Sept 2025Activity: External boards and professional/academic bodies › Membership of professional body
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AHRC Research Grants Panel
Virkar, A. (Reviewer)
25 Jul 2023 → 26 Jul 2023Activity: External funding peer-review