Biography
I wish to enquire into the concept of “mischief” in children’s and Young Adult Literature and its implications in postcolonial literary criticism. My interest largely stems from my reading of Bengali short stories and novels for children in the late twentieth century.
With my experience of teaching middle school, volunteering at the Community Library (The Delek Education Foundation) and then building a public database(The Delek Archives) documenting the discrimination and exclusion in school contexts, I have started thinking of research in terms of “praxis”. Postcolonial children’s literature studies needs to enter into dialogue with such critical praxis related to children’s lives, for intervening in social or academic contexts. Therefore, I wish to engage with a research methodology which can bring together archival research and field work in conversation with community literacy practices.
Workshops and Presentations
- Presented a Paper titled “Naughty Pranks, Transgressive Gazes: Reading the Mischievous Child in Post-Independent Bengali Children’s Literature” at an International Workshop titled “Literature in a Globalised World”, Jawaharlal Nehru University, February 24-25, 2020.
- Presented a Paper titled “The Silent Unruly Child and the Silencing Adult: Reading Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Bolai’” at the 24th Biennial Congress of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature, held at Stockholm City Conference Centre, Stockholm, 14th-18th August, 2019.
- Presented a Paper titled “A Hunt for the Implied Child Reader: a Question of Method in Bengali folktales for Children” at Sociocultural Dimensions of Childhood, International Conference at The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia(Bulgaria), 26th-28th October, 2018.
- Presented a paper titled “Utterly-Butterly-How-Much-Indianly: Reading the Amul Girl of India” at Visual South Asia Conference, University of Dhaka, 10-11th May, 2017.
- Presented a Paper titled “Bengali Folktales: Narratives of an Exclusive Nation” at Researchers’ at Work Conference, University of Hyderabad, 28th - 30th September, 2016.
Teaching Experience
- Middle School English Teacher at Cambridge School, Sriniwaspuri, New Delhi (2017-2018)
- Critical Writing Preceptor at Ashoka University, Sonipat, India(2019-2020)
Research Interests
Children's Literature in a South Asian Context, Childhood Studies, Postcolonial Studies of History, Folklore and Oral Literatures, Storytelling, Multilingual Education, Parallel Childhoods in the Global South, Dalit, Adivasi and Muslim Childhoods, Child Delinquency, Child Activism, Informal Research Methodologies, Public Archiving, and Writing as Critical Practice.
Education
MPhil., Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2018
M.A., University of Delhi, 2016
B.A.,Presidency University, Kolkata, 2014