Dr. Umasankar Patra

 

Umasankar Patra is Assistant Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli. He has previously held positions at University of Delhi and Ambedkar University Delhi, New Delhi. He is a recipient of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation Fellowship and the UGC Junior Research Fellowship. His essays have been published in peer-reviewed journals and books in India and abroad. He has also translated Odia literary criticism into English.

His research interests cover Anglo-American Modernism, Autobiography Studies, Queer Studies and Modernity in India, with a special focus on Odisha. His book project, based on his doctoral research, engages with “Queer Autobiographicality” through the works of Christopher Isherwood, Edmund White and Paul Monette. He is also exploring the intersection of pedagogy and colonial institutions to study the novel articulation of modernity in Odisha vis-à-vis the idiom of conservatism.

 

Contact  Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu-620015

 E-mail: umasankar@nitt.edu 

Education

2019            PhD, Department of English, University of Delhi

2012            M.Phil, Department of English Literature, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad

2011            MA English, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad

2009            BA English, Fakir Mohan University, Odisha

 

Work Experience

June 2020-                                   Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, NIT, Tiruchirappalli

August 2018- May 2020               Assistant Professor, Department of English, Ambedkar University Delhi, New Delhi

Feb 2018- May 2018                    Assistant Professor, Department of English, Zakir Husain Delhi College, University of Delhi

September 2017- Feb 2018         Assistant Professor, Department of English, Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi

 

Academic Awards and Honours

2022            Best Performer Award for Teaching and Research, NIT, Tiruchirappalli

2017            Bursary Grant from the Institute of English Studies, University of London, London

2015            Christopher Isherwood Foundation Fellowship, The Huntington Library, San Marino, USA

2013            UGC Junior Research Fellowship

 

Journal Publications

  • “Queer Camera: Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin and Prater Violet”, Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 69, No.3, pp. 565-585, 2022, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00918369.2020.1840212.
  • “Fakir Mohan Senapati’s Atmacharita: Episodic Autobiography, History, and Interiority, Biography, vol. 44 no. 4, p. 541-560, 2021, muse.jhu.edu/article/857626.
  •  “Translating an Indian Way of Thinking”, Indian Literature, Vol LX, No. 299. 62-70, 2017, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26791383.
  • “Telling Stories in ‘Queer Hell’: Christopher Isherwood’s Down There on a Visit”. The Explicator. Vol.75, No.1, 37-39, 2017, doi:10.1080/00144940.2016.1273190. 
  • Review of Udaya Kumar’s Writing the First Person: Literature, History and Autobiography in Modern Kerala, The Book Review, New Delhi, Vol XLI, No. 1, 39-40, 2017.

 

Book Chapters

  • “Inspectors of the Raj: Introversion and Cosmopolitan Conservatism in Odisha”, In Regional Languages, Identity and the State in Modern India, eds. Javed Majeed et al., Routledge (Forthcoming).
  • "Gender, Precarity and Marginality in Higher Education Spaces in India", In Leading Change in Gender and Diversity in Higher Education from Margins to Mainstream, eds. A. CohenMiller et al., Routledge (Forthcoming).
  • “Eating with Eyes: The Food Economy of Jagannath Culture”, In Bonding with the Lord: Uses of Jagannath in Community Formation and Popular Culture in and beyond Odisha, eds. Jyotirmaya Tripathy and Uwe Skoda, Bloomsbury, 2019.

 

Translations

  • “A Critique of Mamu” and “Has the Champu Kavi Gone Hiding” in Critical Discourse in Odia, edited by Jatindra K. Nayak and Animesh Mohapatra, Routledge, 2021.
  • “Post-Independence Odia Literary Criticism: Contexts, Trends and Consequences” and “Genesis of the Modern Odia Text Book” in Natabara Samantaray: A Reader, edited by Sumanyu Satpathy and Animesh Mohapatra, Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 2017.
  • “Samalochana” with Animesh Mohapatra, in Modern Indian Writing in English Translation: A Multilingual Anthology, edited by Dhananjay Kapse, Worldview Publications, 2016.

 

Contribution to Digital Learning

 

Invited Lectures

  • "Reading Relationally: Forging Solidarities and Affective Networks", Department of English, University of Hyderabad, Jan 2022.
  • "Introduction to Queer Studies", Workshop on Research Methodology, Department of English and Foreign Languages under the aegis of CRISEC, MDU, Rohtak, Haryana, Jan 2021 
  • “Queering Autobiography: Christopher Isherwood and his Lives”, Centre for Writing Studies, O.P Jindal Global University, Sonepat, Haryana, Nov 2020.
  • “After 1922: From Auden to Golding”, National Webinar Series on "Perspectives on History of English Literature", Department of English, North Orissa University, Odisha, August 2020.
  • "Autobiographical Networks: A Critique of Symptomatic Reading", Resource person at the online FDP on “Critical Theories and their Contemporary Trajectories in Humanities”, Department of English, Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh, May 2020.
  • “Modernism: What is Left of the World”, Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College, New Delhi, Feb 2020.
  • Moderator and Discussant at the Panel discussion titled “Spectrum: Alternate Sexualities & Literature”, Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, New Delhi, Feb 2020.
  • “Making of Modernity: An Odia Literary Context”, Resource person at National Seminar, Odisha Association for English Studies, Odisha, Dec 2019.
  • “Translation and the Indian Practice”, Resource person at National seminar on Translation, Government Women’s College, Baripada, Odisha, August, 2016.
  • Brown Bag Lecture Titled “To Prepare a Face to Meet the Faces We Meet: Christopher Isherwood”, The Huntington Library, San Marino, USA, September, 2015.

 

Workshops Attended

  • T.S. Eliot International Summer School, Institute of English, University of London, July 2017. 
  • International Deleuze Camp at Manipal University, Manipal, May-June, 2015.
  • “Theory, after Theory: Uses, Crises and New Directions” at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, September 2014.
  • “Research Writing” at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, March 2014.

 

Papers Presented in Academic Seminars

  • “Poets and Arbiters: Modernity and Literary Marketplace in Odisha and Bengal” at the International Conference on "Purifying the Dialect of the Tribe: Cross-Cultural Concerns in Colonial and Postcolonial India" at IIAS, Shimla, May 2017.
  • “Photographing Life: Isherwood and Camera” at the 13th International Melow Conference organized by Melus-Melow at the University of Jammu, February 2014.
  • “Sahib, Bargi and Nawab: Shifting Allegiance and Conflicting Identities” at the National Young Researchers’ Seminar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, January 2014.