1 CURRICULUM VITAE RIMLI BHATTACHARYA Professor Of

CURRICULUM VITAE

RIMLI BHATTACHARYA Professor of Gender Studies Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta R—1, BaishnabghataPatuli Township, Kolkata- 700 094, India

Tel +91 (0) 33 2462 7252/5794 / 2436 8313 /7794 / 95 / 97 Room Extn. 312 Fax :+91 (0) 33 2462 6183 Email: [email protected]

// Currently on EOL from Department of English, University of Delhi

Permanent Address: ‘Disha’, 49/60 PGMS Road, Calcutta 700 033, India.+91-33-2473 9336 (tel: home) ______

EDUCATION 1986 Ph.D. Brown University, Comparative Literature (English, Russian & French fiction)

Dissertation: ‘Narrative Patterns in the Nineteenth-Century Short Story’

1981 M.A. Jadavpur University, Comparative Literature, First Class First

1977 B.A. Calcutta University, English Honours

TEACHING POSITIONS 2001- Associate Professor, Dept. of English (Permanent Appointment) University of Delhi, Delhi

Spring 2008 ICCR Visiting Chair, Dept of South Asian Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

1997-2001 Reader, Dept. of English (Permanent Appointment) The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat

Spring 2000 Rama Watumull Distinguished Indian Scholar Center for South Asian Studies, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA

1994-95 Guest Lecturer, Dept. of Comparative Literature Jadavpur University, Calcutta

1 1987-90 Pool Officer (Assistant Professor), Centre for Linguistics and English Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

2 HONOURS / AWARDS / RESEARCH GRANTS Annual Research Grant University of Delhi 2011- 2012-2013

3 Short-term research grants Eklavya& Sir Ratan Tata Trust 2009-2010

ICCR Visiting Chair Dept of South Asian Studies Spring 2008 University of Pennsylvania

Rama Watumull Distinguished Center for South Asian Studies Spring 2000 Indian Scholar University of Hawai’i at Manoa

Senior Research Fellowship Ministry of Human Resources 1996- 1998 Development

Small Studies Grant for Nehru Trust Summer 1995 Research at Institutions in the U.K. (supplemented and extended to) Summer 1996

Individual Research Grants The Ford Foundation 1993- 1995

Vistorship to the U.K. The British Council July 1993

Rockefeller Residency Fellowship Institute on Culture & Spring 1993 Consciousness, University of Chicago

General Fellowship Indian Council for 1991-1993 Social Science Research

Travel Grant to Taiwan Sir Dorabji Tata Trust 1986

Scholarship to Inter-University Inter-University Program, 1986-1987 Program for Chinese Language Stanford University Studies in Taipei

Fellowship for Summer Course Institute d’EtudesFrancaises Summer 1983 in Advanced French d’Avignon

Fellowship for Summer Practicum Columbia University Summer 1982 in Advanced Russian

Graduate Studies Fellowship Brown University 1981- 1982

University Medal Jadavpur University 1980 First in First Class in MA Medal in paper on Rabindranath Jadavpur University 1980 Tagore Best All-Round Performance Loreto College, Calcutta University 1977

RESEARCH AREAS

Performance Theory and History; Gender Studies; Narrative Theory; Translation Studies; Primary Education & Children’s Literature; Film and visual arts

CURRENT RESEARCH

1. A major area of intellectual engagement has been to link my involvement with primary education in India with research on children’s literature in textbooks and in texts/ media outside of the space of the school. I seek to combine classroom observation, the creation and critique of teaching-learning materials and theories of pedagogy in relation to multilinguality and the diverse visual and performative traditions of the Indian subcontinent. A particularly rich comparativist perspective in the area of language-literature learning of ‘subject English’ at the school level emerged during a two-year collaborative project with colleagues from India, South Africa and the UK on ‘The construction of the subject English in secondary schools in London, Johannesburg and Delhi’. My M.Phil. course, ‘Children’s Literature: Childhood, pedagogy and literary forms’ (2004 - 2012), has provided a sustained locus of enquiry.

I have been working on a set of inter-linked essays on questions of pedagogy and the creation of teaching-learning materials for children in contemporary India. Archival material as well as the trendy, glossy imprint of the 21st century illustrate and contextualise theoretical questions and the field of practice. The colonial encounter is invoked throughout, but most specifically in the essay on images in primers from the 19th century. The perils and pleasures of working with ‘indigenous’ material and children’s responses to them are central to my concern. The book is

4 tentatively entitled, In Many Tongues: Children, Pedagogy and Expressive Forms in India.

2.The multiple and often conflicting visions of swaraj among the iconic figures of the nationalist movement—political actors such as Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, or thinkers and artists such as Tagore—have challenged a generation within and without India since Independence. With a view to extend and reconfigure the scope of ‘the national’, I have been working on the substantial oeuvre of DhanGopalMukerji (1890-1936), particularly his children’s fiction, written in English and primarily published in the US in the early decades of the twentieth century. I aim to suggest how Mukerji’s particular location and range of readership offers a unique vantage point to explore the internationalist dimensions of the cultural and political construction of India: The Task of the Interpreter: DhanGopalMukerji’s ‘Hindu Jungle’ / India.

Current research cont…

3. I am extending my research of the visual archive of dance and other performance forms in the early decades of the 20th century in colonial India and its international trajectories. This work emerges from a recently completed monograph entitled “The Dancing Poet”: Rabindranath Tagore and Modernity in Performance (forthcoming). Translation has been a central activity to this project.

RESEARCH SUPERVISION

Supervised (Awarded Degree in 2014): HemjyotiMedhi: “The Women’s Question in Colonial Assam: A Case Study of ChandraprabhaSaikiani and the Assam MahilaSamiti’”

Supervision of doctoral dissertation under progress: GarimaRai "Interrogating Migrant Subjectivity in Indian Nepali Writing from Darjeeling (1950s-1980s)"

PracheeDewri: “BishnuprasadRava: A Study in Revolutionary Aesthetics"

VinantiVashisht: “Colonialism, Masculinity and Literature of the Hunt”

5 2009 – 2011: Project Advisor to a 2-year research project (with HemjyotiMedhi) entitled “Memory, Movement and the MahilaSamiti in Assam’, Funded by Preserving Social Memory Grant, The SephisProgramme, International Institute of Social History, The Netherlands and Supported by Tezpur University.

Supervision of MPhil dissertations from 2005 to 2012. Individually Supervised Dissertations (approx 20,000 words) in 2009:

Supervision /Publication of independent research projects:

2009 “Sur Pippa: Songs in Many Tongues: Lullabies and Playsongs in Asamiya, Mizo and Kumaoni with translations into English’. Introduction by Rimli Bhattacharya. Project members: PracheeDewri, Kristina Zama, PadmakshiPatowary and Aditi Chand.

2009 A study of ‘Subject English’ in NCERT textbooks (Classes 3-5), including classroom observation and alternative pedagogies.Introduction by Rimli Bhattacharya and AnujaMadan, with NiveditaBasu&SreyoshiSarkar.

Both projects were supported by Eklavya and the Ratan Tata Trust.

External Examiner for Ph.D. theses: University of Hyderabad, Assam University, Jadavpur University, IIT, University of Delhi, among others.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

2008 University of Pennsylvania ‘The Jungle and the Book: From Kipling to BhajjuShyam’

2001- 2012 University of Delhi M.Phil. Seminars Winter 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012: ‘Children’s Literature: Childhood, pedagogy and literary forms’ Winter 2008: ‘The Body in Performance: Comparative Contexts in the 20th Century’ Summer 2004: ‘Theatrical Formations and the Politics of Spectacle-Making from Mid- 19th to Early 20th Century’ Winter 2003: ‘The Short Story: Texts and Contexts’.

Individual supervision of M.Phil.essays + M.Phil. Research Methodology

2001- 2012 M.A. University of Delhi European Comedy The Nineteenth-century European Novel Perspectives on Indian Literature in Translation New Literatures in English

Spring Semester 2000 University of Hawai’i at Manoa Graduate Seminar: ‘Modernity and Representations/Contradictions of Faith’

1997-2001 MaharajaSayajirao University of Baroda (including undergraduate) Besides regular MA classes, special courses designed on Writing and Communication for the Faculties of Fine Arts & Home Science

1995 Jadavpur University · Historiography and the Chinese Novel

1988-91 Jawaharlal Nehru University Modern Drama; Literary Theory: An Introduction; The Novel in America Politics and Family Relationships in the Novel: A comparative study The Fantastic Short Story

1983-86 Brown University (as Teaching Assistant) Introduction to Comedy; The City and the Arts; Vision and Response in Modern Fiction

PUBLICATIONS

I. Books / Edited volumes

• ‘The Dancing Poet’ : Rabindranath Tagore and modernity in performance (forthcoming)

• BinodiniDasi’s ‘My Story and My Life as an Actress’. New Delhi, Kali for Women: 1998. [Autobiographies of the 19th century stage actress, BinodiniDasi. Translated and edited with Introduction, Notes and Appendices.]

• Texts Travelling Text.Edited and designed special issue of Yearly Review, No. 12, July 2004. Dept of English, University of Delhi.

7 • Co-editor, Katha: Prize Stories, Vol. I, Katha and Rupa, New Delhi, 1991, rpt. 1997. Anthology of contemporary Indian Stories, translated into English.

TRANSLATION of NOVELS with Critical Notes, Introduction & Afterword (from Bangla to English)

• BibhutibhushanBandyopadhyay, Making a Mango Whistle (AamanthirBhepu). Puffin Classic Series, 2007. [Translated into Korean from the English. Seoul, 2009.] • Rabindranath Tagore, Four Chapters (Char Addhyay), New Delhi: Srishti Publishers, 2002. • BibhutibhushanBandyopadhyay, Aranyak: Of the forest. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2002. • BibhutibhushanBandyopadhyay, Ichhamati. Delhi,Rupa (Forthcoming 2015).

From English to Bangla: (Translations of short stories, essays & poems available on request)

Translations ready for publication (from Bangla to English) • Abanindranath Tagore, Nalak • ShanuLahiri, Smritir Collage

Fiction • ‘On Elephant Back’ India International Centre Quarterly, 1993. • Texts for children: SCERT Textbooks, Delhi, 2003. • Photo-essay: ‘Hum Meghkedesh me’ Chakmak, July 2009.

II. Articles / Monographs / Book Chapters:

2013 ‘Chosen Families and Self Transformations inDhanGopalMukerji’sBooks for Children, 1920s-1930s’ in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies; 36: 1; 9-24.

2012 SurPippa: ‘Notes on Running Feet’ (co-authored monograph on ‘Subject English’ in NCERT English Marigold textbooks) Bhopal: Eklavya.

2012 “My Indian kinsmen...” or, the serendipity of the archive’ SangeetNatak journal.

2012 ‘Making a “Play-text”: Innovative Uses of Traditional Arts’ in Journal of Language and Language Teaching. Vol 1, No. 1, 40-45.

2011 ‘The performance of identity and histories of representation’ in Literatures and oratures as knowledge-system: texts from the north-east, GoutamBiswas, SubhaDasgupta and Samantak Das, eds. Delhi, Akansha Publishers. 43–76.

2011 ‘A Clean Slate?’ in Tagore and China, Tan Chung, AmiyaDev et al, eds. Delhi, Sage Publications, 221-240.

2009 ‘Recovery, Recontextualisation and Performance: Questions on the Margin’ in VijayaRamaswamy and Yogesh Sharma, eds. Biography as History: Indian Perspectives. Hyderabad, Orient Blackswan, 152-177.

2007 ‘The Policy-Practice Nexus in Delhi, Johannesburg and London English Classrooms: Teachers and the Textual Cycle’ Joint paper, TESOL Quarterly, vol. 41, No 3, September 2007, pp. 465-85.

2006 ‘Autobiographies, Atmacharits and Other Selves’ in Sites and Practices.An Exercise in Cultural Pedagogy.MadhusreeDutta and SmritiNevatia, eds. Bombay, Majlis, pp. 189-199.

2004 ‘Notes on ‘A Strange Meeting’ (BichitraSabha): Calcutta, 1912’ in Indian Folklife, special issue on Genre, Community, and Event, Roma Chatterji, ed. vol. 3, 4, No. 17, October 2004.

2003 ‘Thenautee in “the Second City of the Empire” in The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 40, 2, pp. 192-235.

1995-96 ‘Benediction in Performance: Reverberations of Chaitanya Lila from the 1880s’ in Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature, No. 33.

1995 ‘Ektibichitrasabharkahini’ (The Story of a Strange Meeting) (in Bangla).Baromas, pp. 75-79.

1995 ‘Actress Stories and the “Female” confessional voice in Bengali Theatre Magazines, 1910-25’.Seagull Theatre Quarterly, No. 5. May 1995.

1994 ‘Kamlabai Revisited’ (on Reena Mohan’s documentary film on the Marathi actress, KamlabaiGokhale. Seagull Theatre Quarterly, No. 1. May 1994. Excerpted in Economic Times, August 21, 1994.

9 1993 ‘Redemption of the “Nati”’. Institute for Culture and Consciousness, Occasional Papers I, Susan Rudolph et al eds. University of Chicago, December 1993.

1992 ‘Siting the Teacher’ in The Lie of the Land: English Literature in India, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, ed. Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

‘Salman Rushdie: Migrant in the Metropolis’ (co-authored) in Beyond the Rushdie Affair, special issue of The Third Text, Don Miller, Guest ed. No. 11, 1990.

‘Chinese Treasures: Cave Murals and a Classic Chinese Novel’. The Indian Express, Feb 9, 1992.

“Public Women”: Early Stage Actresses of the Calcutta Stage”. The Calcutta Psyche, India International Centre Quarterly, Vol. 17, Nos. 3 & 4, 1990-91.

‘Bimala’s Story: Conflicting Strands in Tagore’s novel and Vivadi’s play’. The Hindustan Times, September 28, 1989.

Reviews Peer reviewer for journal articles on children’s literature: Bookbird, A Journal of International Children’s Literature

1991-1996 Drama Critic for The Indian Express, New Delhi, for plays in Hindi, English and Bangla.

1991-2007 Book Reviews for Biblio,The Indian Express, The Indian Review of Books, The Book Review, Interventions.

Editorial consultant Dunhuang Art, Tan Chung ed., Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, 1993.

NGOs and Health Care, SarojPachauri, ed. The Ford Foundation, India.Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1994.

ACADEMIC TALKS [from 1997 onwards]

10 1. Invited Talks / Conference Papers / Keynote Address

9 August 2014. ‘Many tongues, many realities: Children’s Literature in the Indian Subcontinent’, Plenary speaker representing Indiaat the 3rd World Children’s Literature Convention (The Twelfth Asia Children’s Literature Convention), Korea.

3 June 2014. ‘A note on inflecting “the Colonies” through the materiality of performance practice’.International conference on ‘Ireland and the Colonies, 1776-1947: Friendships, Alliances, Resistances,’ Institute of Collaborative Research in the Humanities, Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

5 March 2014. ‘Templates of Pluralism: The US,DhanGopalMukerji and Juvenile Literature’. International conference on ‘The Futures of American Studies’, Department of English, University of Delhi, Delhi.

8 August 2013. “New Jungle Tales? Dhan Gopal Mukerji’s market, 1920s-1930s’. General Seminar at CSSSC, Kolkata.

16 Aug 2012. ‘Reading Lies.In many tongues’. International conference on ‘The Humanities in Ferment: Strategizing for our Times’, MargHumanities and the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.

6 May 2012. ‘Variations on the aural’, National conference on Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Simankan’, SahityaAkademi&JnanaPrabha, Mumbai.

April 2012. Tracing the lineages of children’s literature in Bengal. Seminar on Children’s Literature, Room to Read, India; New Delhi.

20 Jan 2012. ‘Figurations and Configurations’, International seminar on ‘Temporal spaces, corporeality and embodiment in Tagore’s theatrical works’, National School of Drama, Delhi.

Jan 2012 ‘Head Curry: Familiar Food’, International conference on ‘The Politics of Children’s Literature’, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack.

Oct 2011. ‘Playing with Time’, International conference on ‘Tagore, Neruda, Cèsaire: A View from the South’, IIAS, Shimla.

5 Feb 2010. ‘Comparative Literature and Translation’, Department of English, Tezpur University, Tezpur.

Feb 2010. ‘The subject and the subjective in histories of education’, National Conference on ‘Biography as History’, Department of History, JamiaMiliaIslamia, New Delhi

11 26 Jan 2009 ‘Where Children Read’, National Centre for Children’s Literature, NBT, New Delhi

16 Jan 2009 ‘The performance of identity and histories of representation’ National Seminar on ‘Literatures and Oratures as Knowledge Systems: Texts from the North-East’ CAS, Dept of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Calcutta

6 Jan 2009 ‘On the track and off: Fragment, Resonance and Fact’ Leverhume Translation Project, JNU, New Delhi

Sep 2008 ‘Scouting the transnational contexts of DhanGopalMukerji’sGay- Neck the Pigeon, 1927’.Dept of English, Seminar Series, University of Delhi.

Dec 2008. ‘Notes on the Verbal and the Visual in Chinese and Indian Traditions’ International Conference on ‘New Perspectives on Intercultural Studies’.Institute of Chinese Studies and IGNCA, New Delhi.

Sep 2008. Inaugural Address at International Conference on Children’s Literature: ‘Bind us Together: Global Perspectives in Multicultural Children’s Literature’. CLAI and Nirmala College for Women, Coimbatore.

Aug 2008. Keynote Address. National Seminar on "Writing in English: The literary response to psychological, cultural and socio-political changes n the latter part of the twentieth century.’ Mumbai.

April 2008 ‘Shikar: Mughal miniatures and Kipling’s Jungles’ Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, US.

April 2008 ‘Durga and her Aunt: an Introduction to Ray’s PatherPanchali’. Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, US.

Mar 2008 ‘What’s dance got to do with it... Revisiting debates on morality in Bengal, 1920s-1930s’ International Conference on ‘South Asian Feminisms: Gender, Culture and Politics’ University of Pennsylvania.

Feb 2008. ‘On and Off the Proscenium: Notes on Mourning’ An Occasional Series, 2007-2008: Publics beyond Print: Technologies of Circulation in South Asia’ Dept of SAS, University of Pennsylvania.

June 2007. ‘“Play-texts” for Primary Schoolchildren: A Case Study from West Bengal, India.’ Fourteenth International Conference on Learning held at University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

12 Dec 2006 ‘Creating space for creative space: the task of the textbook maker/teacher’. National conference on Illustrations for Children.Eklavya, Bhopal. Sir Ratan Tata Trust.

Nov 2006 ‘Reflections on Comparative Literature and Translation’, Gargi College, Delhi.

Oct 2005 ‘Resonances in Representation: Questioning “Identity” through the lens of images’ in ‘Politics of Culture in Contemporary China & India’. Institute of Chinese Studies, CSDS.

May 2006 ‘Multilingualism, visuality and the individual learner: the case for primary education’, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, May 2006.

Sep 2005 ‘DhanGopalMukerji’s “superb epics of jungle life”: Perspectives on violence and children’s fiction in the 1920s.’ Dept. of History, University of Delhi, September 2005.

Mar 2005 ‘Performing Selves: Women’s auto/biographies and modernity in India’, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, March 2005.

Mar 2005 ‘Visual dimensions of text-making for primary school children: Notes from a project’. University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, March 2005.

Oct 2004 ‘Iconization and its discontents: the 19th century proscenium stage actress in Bengal’, SFB colloquium series, University of Konstanz, Germany.

Feb 2003. International conference and workshop ‘Lovers Mothers Daughters Writers: The Woman as an Artist’ in UK-South Asian Women Writers’ Conference on “Voice, Dialogue and Visibility”, British Council, Delhi.

Dec 2003 ‘Stories from Manipur’, Indic Religion Conference, New Delhi.

Nov 2003 ‘Quests and Questions in the Mahabharata’, Conference on ‘Justice— Political, Juridical’, KonradAdaneur Foundation, Jaisalmer.

Feb 2003 International conference and workshop ‘Lovers Mothers Daughters Writers: The Woman as an Artist’ in UK-South Asian Women Writers’ Conference on “Voice, Dialogue and Visibility”, British Council, Delhi.

Jan 2003. International conference ‘Performance and Ethnicity: Towards Contextualising the “Northeast” in India’: International Federation for Theatre Research, Annual Conference on ‘Ethnicity and Identity Global Performance’, Dept of Dramatics, University of Rajasthan and Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur.

Feb 2003 ‘Looking for a Subject? Biography and History’ Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

May 2000 ‘Frames of Representation and Questions of Faith’. Dept. of English, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

May 2000 ‘Gender and Spectacle on the 19th Century Indian Stage’. Dept. of Drama, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

April 2000. ‘Fictions of Identity’: Keynote address, 17th Annual Spring Symposium, Center for South Asian Studies, University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

Dec 1999. ‘Advertising Modernity on the Proscenium Theatre’: Seminar on Gender and Representation, Indraprastha College, New Delhi.

Mar 1999 ‘Exploring Women’s Narratives’. Dept of English, S.N.D.T. Women’s University, Bombay and Katha.

Jan 1999 ‘Modernity and Questions of Impersonation’: International Conference on ‘Interdisciplinary Crossings: The Question of Modernity’, Dept of English, The M.S. University of Baroda.

Nov 1998 ‘Ideologies of the Textbook’: National Seminar on the Compulsions and Possibilities of General English, Dept of English, M.K. Amin College of Arts, Padra& M.S. University of Baroda.

Oct – Nov 1998 Selected essays under the general title ‘Space and Spectacle: Gender and Visual Configuration in 19th century Bengali Public Theatre’ at: • Department of Linguistics, University of Konstanz, Germany, November 1998. • Comparative Literature Lecture Series I, The Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Southern Asia Institute, Columbia University, NY, October 1998. • Pembroke Centre for Women’s Studies, Department of Theatre and Department of Comparative Literature, Brown University, October 1998.

Jan 1998 ‘Giving Voice to Desire: Miss Bankimbinodini’s Letter’: National conference on Romanticism and Nineteenth-Century Indian Texts, Dept of English, Jadavpur University, Calcutta.

Dec 1997 ‘Questions on Representation’: Conference on ‘Women in Media’, Max Mueller Bhavan, Bombay in collaboration with the Social Communications Media Dept. of the Sophia Memorial Polytechnic, Bombay.

III. Panels Nov 2011 Discussant, Workshop on ‘Environmental Transformations and the Politics of Place’. NMML, New Delhi.

Feb 2010 ‘Amrita — Vivan’ Discussant, Amrita Sher-Gil: a self-portrait in letters & writings,Tulika Books, IIC, New Delhi.

Sep 2009 Discussant, Writing Identities: Folklore and Performative Arts of Purulia, Bengal by Roma Chatterji, IGNCA, New Delhi.

3 Dec 2008 ‘A glimpse of subcontinental possibilities and the knowledge economy’ Panel organized by Dept of English & Thesis 11, University of Delhi

15 Nov 2008 ‘Image as Icon: Notes from the Proscenium Theatre in Bengal’ in Panel on ‘Gender Discourse in Asian History: Imaging Femininity and Masculinity’. International Association of Historians, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Mar 2008. “Between the colloquial and the stylized: Exploring the languages of narrative”. Language Workshop, Dept of South Asian Studies, University of Pennsylvania.

Oct 2007 ‘Gleanings: Ramkinkar and the other arts’, ‘Ramkinkar: Contextualising the Indian Modernist’, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Mar 2007 ‘Multilingualism/Multiculturalism?’ Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.

Feb 2007 ‘Pedagogy, Research and Masculinities’. South Asian Conference on Exploring Masculinities.St. Alosiyus College &Akaar Trust, Thrissur.

Feb 2007 ‘Tones of the fantastic, a reader hears’. Benodebihari Mukherjee Retrospective, National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi.

Jan 2004 Panelist on ‘Literature and Cinema’, International Seminar on Cultural Diversity, Katha, New Delhi.

Aug 2000 Panelist on ‘Gender in Discipline’.Orientation course at WSRC, MS University of Baroda.

15 Oct 1998 Panel presentation on ‘Staging Gender and Nation in South Asian Theatre’: Annual Conference of South Asian Studies, University of Madison, Wisconsin.

III. Public Lectures March 2000. ‘Celebrating the City: Kalighat paintings’ (Lecture with slides) for the Society for Asian Art, at the Academy Art Center, Honolulu.

March 2000. ‘Making Modern India: Luminous Lives” (on three women’s autobiographies from India from early twentieth century to the present) for The Twenty-First Century Club, Honolulu.

April 2000. Rama Watumull Public Lecture.‘Subject, Actress, Fires: Spectacle on the 19th century Indian stage”

Conceptualised and Coordinated. UGC Refresher Course for College Teachers on ‘Interdisciplinary Crossings: Theory, Research and Classroom Practices’, March 2007. Joint Coordinator for ‘National Workshop on English Language Studies’, Dept. of English, University of Delhi, 18-19 March 2002.

1997 - 2012 RESOURCE PERSON for Cultural Studies Workshops, Translation Workshops and UGC Refresher Courses: Panjab University; Sambalpur University, University of Delhi.JamiaMillia University, Jadavpur University, S.N.D.T. Women’s University, Bombay, University of Pennsylvania, and M.SU.of Baroda.

ACADEMIC SERVICE University and Departmental: • 2006 – 2011: Invited member to Committee on Equal Opportunity Cell (EOC):. • July 2001 - 2002: Member of sub-committees for the revision of the M.A. syllabus & Member of the Library subcommittee, Dept of English, University of Delhi. • January – March 1999: Conceptualised and coordinated Inter-Faculty Quiz Competition (in three phases) for students from all fourteen Faculties for the Golden Jubilee of the MSU, Baroda. • January 1998: Conceptualised and co-edited and produced special souvenir issue of the Shakespeare Society, Dept of English, M.S. University of Baroda.

WORK IN PRIMARY EDUCATION

Nominated /Invited July 2014. Nominated by MHRD to be on International Review Panel for the Tess-India Open Education Resources of material prepared by the Open University, UK.

December 2013. Invited to be on the National Book Trust Advisory Panel for the World Book Fair, New Delhi, 2014. Worked with M.Phil. students on children’s book illustrations.

2006-2007: Consultant with Eklavya, Bhopal, and Ratan Tata Trust on establishing proposed centre for research on children’s literature.

2003: Contributor to and copy editor of English textbooks for Delhi State govt schools, Classes 1-5, under the auspices of SCERT.

2000-2002: Resource Person of project on producing workbooks & other teaching- learning material for Classes 1-3 for DPEP, West Bengal.

1992-1998: Consultant and Researcher in Primary Education in India (in Assam, Bengal, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi, Tamil Nadu). Focus on curriculum development, textbook evaluation and visual composition and layout. Work for SCERT, Delhi, in editing and contributing material to Classes 1-4 English textbooks. LANGUAGE EXPERTISE

Fluency: English, Bangla, Hindi&Asomiya

Competence: Chinese (Mandarin), French, Russian& Gujarati

1991-1992: Consultant (Chinese/Hindi/English) to Sino-Indian Cell, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi.

June 1989: Interpreter (Chinese/Hindi/English) to Elcaps Capacitors Limited, Bhopal, India for a visiting team of engineers from Taiwan.

Sept 1985 – June 1986: Tutor in English as a Foreign Language to Chinese students in Taiwan.

FILM AND THE VISUAL ARTS

17 2013 - (in progress): Working with VivanSundaram and other collaborators on a performance project around art and life of painter sculptor, RamkinkarBaij.

2012 Student workshops on Illustrations for children for MPhil seminar on ‘Children’s Literature: Childhood, Pedagogy and Expressive forms’.

2007 - (in progress) Script research and production for a two-part film on the North-Eastern states of India.

1994-1995: Script Consultant and Production Coordinator (Bangla & Hindi) for National Film Development Corporation produced film Char Addhyay in Hindi, based on Rabindranath Tagore’s novel of the same name. Directed by Kumar Shahani.