CHRISTEL R DEVADAWSON (Cambridge)

Christel Rashmi Devadawson
Professor
91-11-272666757
email: christelrashmi@gmail.com
Preferred Contact Hour: By Appointment

Ph.D (University of Cambridge, 1992) MPhil.(University of Delhi, 1989), M.A. (University of Delhi, 1986), B.A.(University of Delhi, St. Stephen’s College, 1984)

Biography

I’m passionate about the way in which cultures think, argue, and occasionally fall silent across time and space in poetry, fiction, painting and pictorial satire. This is, I think, the one constant that holds together what otherwise seem divergent research interests: nineteenth century representations of India, South Asian and life writing in English, and popular culture in India in the twentieth century and after, and Golden Age detective fiction. I also care very much about how teaching and research interests sometimes feed into — and off — each other, and sometimes seem to walk resolutely away from each other. This explains, perhaps, why I choose to teach twentieth-century British poetry and fiction at the Masters level, and why I run M Phil courses that reflect my research interests in contemporary popular fiction and visual cultures. These are: ‘Modern India in Paint and Print,’ ‘Dissent and the Shaping of South Asia,’ and ‘Culture and Crime: Golden Age Detective Fiction.’

Areas of Interest/Research: 

Nineteenth century representations of India, South Asian and life writing in English, Popular culture in India in the twentieth century and after, Golden Age detective fiction.

Courses Taught: 

Honours, Awards, Appointments: 

Visiting Fellow (under ASIHSS grant), Department of English, Jadavpur University, March-April 2008

Reader-in-charge, Department of English, University of Delhi South Campus (February 2004 to February 2007)

Reader, Department of English, University of Delhi (March 2001 to date)

(Actg) Reader-in-charge, Department of English, University of Delhi South Campus, September-November 2002

Teape Lecturer for the three-part Westcott Memorial lecture-series, University of Cambridge, November 2001 (lectured at the universities of Cambridge, Birmingham, Leicester, and Warwick) with the series title ‘Travelling through Britain: India’s road to postcolonialism.’

Head of the English Department, St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, July 2000 – February 2001

Lecturer in English, St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, July 1986 – February 2001

Awards

ASIHSS Visiting Fellowship March-April 2008 Jadavpur

Teape Lectureship November 2001, Cambridge

Indian Council for Cultural Relations April 1996 Oviedo

British Council Visitor April 1994 London

Ministry of Human Resource Development March 1994 Oxford

Govt. of India

Representatitive Publications

books 

Reading India, Writing England: The fiction of Rudyard Kipling & E M Forster, Delhi: Macmillan, 2005.

(with G K Das) Forster’s ‘A Passage to India’: An anthology of recent criticism (New Orientations series), Delhi: Pencraft International, 2005.

A Passage to India (copyright edition for South Asia) Delhi: Penguin, 2004.

Jane Eyre (inaugural title in the Critical Texts series) Delhi: Macmillan, 2000.

articles

‘Strategies of protest: Gandhi in contemporary cartoons’, (2013) Bangkok, AAGS-2013  Conference proceedings (ed) Rab Patterson,

https://sites.google.co.in/site/aags2011conferenceproceedings/home/aags-2013-conference-papers, n p, accessed 09 March 2014

‘The irrelevance of empire: Visual politics and the working of Beast and Man in India, (2014) The Delhi University Journal of the Humanities & Social Sciences,

http://journals.du.ac.in/humsoc/about.html, 24-38, accessed 09 March 2014

‘Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi,’ A Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol 323: South Asian Writing in English, (ed.) Fakrul Alam, Columbia: Bruccoli-Clark, 2006.

‘Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru,’ A Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol 323: South Asian Writing in English, (ed.) Fakrul Alam, Columbia: Bruccoli-Clark, 2006.

‘”Powers of Air”: The themes of action and renunciation in Kipling, Forster and Myers,’ Yearly Review, University of Delhi, 2006.

‘Looking at Nehru: Cartoon or Chronicle?’ Yearly Review, Delhi: University of Delhi, 2005. ‘Governance in Frankenstein.’ Anjana Sharma (ed.) ‘Frankenstein’: Interrogating, gender, culture and identity. Delhi: Macmillan, 2004.

‘From Danzig to Ayemenem: A look ahead at Arundhati Roy.’ R K Dhawan (ed.), Arundhati Roy: Novelist Extraordinary, Delhi: Prestige Books, 1999.

‘“Shaking up a continent”: Biography as a postindependence response.’ ARIEL, University of Calgary, 1998, subsequently rpt. in Malashri Lal, Alamgir Hashmi and Victor J Ramraj (ed.) Post Independence Voices in South Asian writings, Delhi: Doaba, 2001.

‘“Resistance from within”: Reading and neocolonialism.’ Links & Letters, Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 1997.

‘Subaltern consciousness and The Sign of Four.’ In-between, Delhi, 1997

‘Approaches to contemporary literatures.’ Literature Alive, The British Council, Delhi, 1995

‘“Riddle of the Gods”: Indian myth in the fiction of Rudyard Kipling.’ Yearly Review, University of Delhi, 1992