13 years

Research Area

Literature and Performing Arts, Indian Writing in English Translation, Postcolonial Studies

Research Guidance

1. Ms. Ankita Panda: "Colonial/Postcolonial Masculinities and the Making of the Nation: A Study of Selected Novels"
2. Ms. Liji Babu: "The Body in Selected Short Stories by Indian Women Writers"
3. Mr. Rajesh Patra: "The Epistolary Subject in Colonial India: A Reading of Select Letters by Women Writers"
4. Mr. Pragyans Ranjan: "Coming Out as Dalit: Interrogating New Spaces through Dalit Personal Narratives"
Supervised more than 45 M.A. dissertations on various topics pertaining to Literary and Cultural studies.

International Publications

1. “Chaste Bodies, Chaste Canon: Nationalist Discourse and the Female Performing Body in Munshi Premchand’s Sevasadan”, South-Asian Review (Taylor and Francis) [Index: Scopus; Impact Factor: ]
2. “Poetry, Performance, and the Courtesan: Changing Contours of the Thumri in Kathak”, Caesurae: Poetics of Cultural Translation, Vol II [Index: UGC; Impact Factor: ]
3. “My Love of Thee Overflows in the Music of My Gestures: The ‘Dancing-Girl’ in Modern Indian Theatre”, Margins: A Journal of Literature and Culture, Vol. III [Index: UGC; Impact Factor: ]
4. "Nation and its Others: The Tawaif and the Muslim Literary Consciousness in Mirza Ruswa's Umrao Jan Ada and Ahmed Ali's Ocean of Night" [Index: UGC; Impact Factor: ]
5. "Performance, Censorship, Exclusion: Courtesan and Courtly Poetic Traditions in Colonial India" [Index: UGC; Impact Factor: ]

National Publications

1. "'I have Seen the Moment of My Greatness Flicker': Travel, Modernism, and Empire in Hilaire Belloc's The Modern Traveller", Sambalpur Studies in Literatures and Cultures, Series VII [Index: UGC; Impact Factor: ]
2. “Relocating ‘Minabazaar’: Sanitization of Musical Practices in Premchand’s Sevasadan”, Sambalpur Studies in Literatures and Cultures, Vol. II [Index: UGC; Impact Factor: ]
3. “Sexuality, Performance, Nation: The ‘Dancing-girl’ in Indian Fiction”, SEARCH: A Journal of Arts, Humanities, and Management, Vol. XI [Index: Other; Impact Factor: ]
4. "A Tradition in Transition: Representation of Hindusthani Classical Music in Amit Chaudhuri's The Immortals", Search: A Journal of Arts, Humanities and Management [Index: Other; Impact Factor: ]

International Conferences

1. "Memsahibs and the Discourse of Social Reform in Colonial India: Frieda Hauswirth Das's Purdah and A Marriage to India", International Conference on Mirroring Change: Literature and Social Transformation, Department of English, Pondicherry University [Index: ]
2. "‘Women of Pleasure’: Performing Communities, Microhistory, and the Novel", XVI Biennial CLAI International Conference on Interplay of Community, Textuality and Orality: Comparative Perspective on History, Culture and Society, Sikkim University [Index: ]
3. "Daughters of Sin: The Courtesan Novel as Microhistory", IACLALS International Conference (Online) [Index: ]
4. "Towards a Vernacular Modernity: Contextualizing Vignanachandrika Mandali in Colonial Andhra" (invited paper), International Conference on Learned Societies in Colonial India, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla [Index: ]
5. "The Many Uses of Nostalgia: Ahmed Ali, Progressivism, and Hindu Nationalism", IACLALS International Conference on Angarey and the Progressive Writers Movement, Avadh Girls' Degree College, Lucknow [Index: ]
6. "Politicizing Nostalgia: Courtesan, Muslim Identity, and Hindu Nationalism in Indian Fiction, International Conference on Politics and Letters, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar [Index: ]
7. Sexuality, Performance, Nation: The ‘Dancing-Girl’ in Indian Fiction, International Conference on Decentering English Studies: Studying Literature in the Global South, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar [Index: ]
8. “Sexuality, History, Nation: Amrapali in Twentieth Century Indian Literatures and Cultures”, Researchers at Work (RAW) Conference, Department of Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad [Index: ]
9. “Relocating Minabazaar: Sanitization of Musical Practices in Premchand’s Sevasadan”, IACLALS International Conference on “The Postcolonial in Indian Languages”, Department of English and European Languages, University of Lucknow [Index: ]
10. “The ‘Dancing-Girl’ as ‘Artist’: A Study of R.K.Narayan’s The Guide”, IACLALS International Conference on “Text and Performance”, Department of English, Central University of Jharkhand [Index: ]
11. “A Tradition in Transition: Representation of Hindusthani Classical Music in Amit Chaudhuri’s The Immortals”, IACLALS International Conference on “Word, Image, Music: Postcolonial Readings”, DDCE, Utkal University [Index: ]

National Conferences

1. “Best Narrative of Lucknow: Cinematic Adaptations of Ruswa’s Umrao Jan Ada”, National Students’ Seminar, Department of English, Jadavpur University, West Bengal [Index: ]
2. "Defining the ‘Indian’ Woman: A Study of Githa Hariharan’s The Thousand Faces of Night”, National Seminar on “Revisiting Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own”, Department of English, Sambalpur University, Odisha [Index: ]
3. "Woman and Music in Post-Independence Indian English Fiction”, National Young Researchers’ Conference, Centre for English and Cultural Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi [Index: ]
4. "Envisioning the ‘New’: Dance Writings of Ranjabati Sircar”, National Young Researchers’ Conference on “Discursifying English: Contemporary Cultures, Contemporary Concerns”, Centre for English and Cultural Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi [Index: ]
5. "In Search of Her Mother’s Gardens: Dance Writings of Ranjabati Sircar”, DRS National Seminar on “Revisiting the Premises of Postcolonial Studies”, Department of English, Sambalpur University [Index: ]
6. "Contextualizing the Kunstlerroman in Twenty First Century Indian English Fiction: Namita Devidayal’s The Music Room”, National Seminar on “Writing Bildungsromane in Postcolonial Con[texts]”, Department of English, Sambalpur University [Index: ]
7. "Politics of Reform, Poetics of Revival: The Devadasi in Twentieth Century Indian Fiction”, National Young Researchers’ Conference on “Cultural Representations: Race, Class, Gender, Caste”, Department of English, University of Burdwan, West Bengal [Index: ]
8. "My Love of Thee Overflows in the Music of My Gestures: The ‘Dancing-Girl’ in Modern Indian Theatre”, National Seminar on “Modernity and Indian Theatre”, Department of English, Gauhati University, Assam [Index: ]
9. "Writing History, Righting History", National Seminar on Literature and the New World Order, BJB Autonomous College, Bhubaneswar [Index: ]
10. "Shifting Topographies: The Female Performing Body in Partition Narratives", National Seminar on History, Memory, Trauma, Department of English, Sambalpur University [Index: ]
11. "Gandhi and the Nautch Question in Colonial India", National Seminar on Rethinking Gandhi, School of Education, Gangadhar Meher University [Index: ]

Graduate Level:

Shakespeare, Romantic Poets, Women's Writing, Literary Theory, Popular Literature, Indian Writing in English, World Literature

Post Graduate Level:

Renaissance Literature and Thought, 20th Century Literature and Thought, Literary Theory, Travel Narratives, European Novels in English Translation, Indian Literature

Award, Honours and Achievements

1. S Ray Memorial Gold Medal for securing the highest percentage of marks in M.A. English, Utkal University, 2010
2. B Pattnaik Memorial Gold Medal for securing the highest percentage of marks in M.A. English, Utkal University, 2010
3. B.L. Mohanty Gold Medal for securing the highest percentage of marks in M.A. English, Utkal University, 2010
4. University Gold Medal for securing the highest percentage of marks in M.A. English, Utkal University, 2010
5. POSCO-Asia Fellowship, 2009
6. First Prize in All India Inter-University Elocution, Shiksha Mandal, Wardha, 2009

Books / Chapters Published

2. "Corporeal Topographies: The Dispossessed Courtesan in Partition Narratives", Revisiting the Partition: Literature, Cinema and Society, Sarkar Library Publication, 2023
3. "On the Sail: Boatmen and Boat-Journeys in Indian River Fiction", Sarita Sutrakatha: Riverine Cultures in Indian Narrative, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, 2023
4. "On the Margins of Respectability: The Disempowered Devadasi in Muvalur Ramamirthammal's Web of Deceit", Marginal Narratives and the Question of Human Rights in Asian Pacific Literature, Springer Nature, 2024

Sponsored Projects

1. "The Memsahib in Colonial Orissa: Gender, Culture, Modernity", Project sponsored under GMU Seed Fund, 2023

Seminar / Symposia / Workshops / Short term Course organized

1. Sahitya Akademi Workshop on Translating Bhakti Literature
2. Prof. Prafulla Pati Memorial Lecture
3. Prof. Srimat Sahu Memorial Lecture

Members of Professional Bodies

1. Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (IACLALS)
2. Comparative Literature Association of India (CLAI)

Extra Responsibility

1. Coordinator, Literary and Cultural Committee
2. Programme Officer, National Service Scheme
3. Member, Board of Studies
4. Member, Departmental Research Committee
5. IQAC Coordinator, School of English
6. Team Leader, Times Higher Education Rankings (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024)
7. Member, Publication Cell
8. Officer-in-Charge, UG/PG/PhD Admissions