Suchitra Mathur

Assistant Professor
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Kanpur - 208016
India

Phone: +91-512-2597836 (office)
+91-512-2595525 (home)
Email: suchitra@iitk.ac.in

Current Teaching and Research Interests: These two, for me, go hand-in-hand. I believe in, and pursue, both as collaborative enterprises whose aim is to further our understanding of each other and the worlds we inhabit.

  • Feminist theories and literatures
  • Postcolonial theories and literatures
  • Indian writing in English (especially the Indian-English Novel)
  • Popular culture studies (especially Science Fiction, Detective Fiction, and Film Studies)

Courses Taught (selected):

·        Introduction to Fiction

·        Writers' Visions of the Future

·        Indian Writing in English

·        Postcolonial Theory and Literature

·        Feminist Theory and Literature

·        20th Century Women Writers

·        American Minority Women Writers

·        Topics in Literary Genres

Teaching Experience:

2000-Present

Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

1997-2000

University of Wisconsin - Whitewater
Assistant Professor of English, Dept. of Languages and Literatures

1992-1997

Wayne State University, Detroit, MI
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Dept. of English

July-Dec. 1990

Indraprastha College, Delhi University
Lecturer in English

Oct. 1989-May 1990

Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University
Lecturer in English

Education:

Ph.D. English

December 1998, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA
Dissertation: "Gender and the Postcolonial Intellectual: A Study of the Works of Nayantara Sahgal."
Dissertation director: Prof. Donna Landry, Wayne State University

M.A. English

May 1989, Delhi University, Delhi, India

B.A.  English

May 1987, Delhi University, Delhi, India

 

Publications (selected):

·        "Caught Between the Goddess and the Cyborg: Third World Women and the Politics of Science in Three Works of Indian Science Fiction" in The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 39.3 (2004): 119-138.

·        "'The Women's Question': Indian Feminism from the Nineteenth Century to the Present." Society for Women Sociologists (SWS) Newsletter. November 1998.

·        Entry on Gita Mehta for "South Asian Women Writers," a part of the series entitled Who's Who in Contemporary Women's Writing, ed. Jane Eldridge Miller. London: Routledge, 1998.

·        Entries on Anita Desai and Bharati Mukherjee in Feminist Writers, ed. Pamela -Kester-Shelton. Detroit: St. James Press, 1996. 141-43; 345-46.

·        Co-Editor, Reading With a Difference: Gender, Race, and Cultural Identity. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993.

Conference Presentations (selected):

·        “‘Kiski Ankhon Ka Tara Hai Tu?’:  Picturing Motherhood and Adoption in Popular Hindi Cinema,” presented at the 26th Annual Meeting of the National Women’s Studies Association, Orlando, FL, June 9-12, 2005

·        “Holmes Reincarnated:  A Study in Postcolonial Transposition,” presented at “The Detective Novel:  Themes and Perspective,” an international conference organized by the Institut Catholique de Paris, Paris, France, May 10-12, 2005

·        “Language, Nation, Community:  The Politics of Ethnicity in the Indian-English Novel,” presented at the Thirteenth International Triennial Conference of ACLALS, Hyderabad, 4-9 August, 2004

·        "Re-Visioning Science, Re-Thinking Positivism: The Politics of Gender in Indian English Science Fiction," presented at the International Seminar on Women and Science, organized by National Institute of Science, Technology and Development (NISTAD), Delhi, March 8-10, 2004

·        "(En)Gendering Post-Nationalism: New Directions in Indian Women's Autobiographical Narratives," presented at the National Symposium on New Directions in English Studies in India, organized by CIEFL and IAES, Feb. 14-16, 2001

·        "Devi in Diaspora: Ethnicity and Empowerment in Indian-American Women's Fiction," read at the 8th International American Women Writers of Color Conference, Ocean City, MD, Oct. 29-31, 1999

·        "'A Feminine Form of Transportation': Marital Migrations and the Politics of Liberation in Alexander and Divakaruni," presented at the 28th Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, WI, Oct. 14-17, 1999

·        "Whose 'India' is it?: History and National Identity in Nayantara Sahgal's Mistaken Identity," read at the First Annual Red River Conference, Fargo, ND, April 1998

·        Participant in Panel Discussion entitled "Colonial Discourse to Transnational Studies: India?" held at Wayne State University, Nov. 1996. Other participants: Prof. Gyan Prakash, Prof. Nicholas Dirk, Dr. Aamir Mufti, and Dr. Anindyo Roy. Moderator: Prof. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak