Dr Debjani Ganguly
Debjani Ganguly was appointed Head of the Humanities Research Centre in February 2007. Previously she was Director, Research Development at the Centre for Cross Cultural Research (CCR). After completing her PhD in postcolonial literary studies at ANU’s School of Humanities, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the CCR (2002-2004). Prior to taking up her doctoral studies in Australia, Debjani completed a Masters and an MPhil in English and Comparative Literature from the University of Bombay and was a university lecturer in English in Bombay.
Debjani’s areas of specialization are postcolonial literary and historical studies and comparative/world literatures in the era of globalization. Her book, Caste, Colonialism and Counter- Modernity (Routledge 2005), is both an intellectual history and a revisionist ethnography of caste and untouchability in India from the point of view of theoretical developments in the field of postcolonial theory. She recently wrote for and co-edited two other volumes: one on the legacy of Edward Said, Edward Said: The Legacy of a Public Intellectual (Melbourne UP, 2007) in which leading Australian and overseas scholars analyze the ways in which humanities and literary studies in particular can engage with the oeuvre of this leading postcolonial humanist in the 21st century; the second on the eclectic cosmopolitanism of Gandhian thought and its refractory legacies, Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Relationality: Global Perspectives (Routledge, 2007).
She is currently working on a world literature project on Anglophone writing in the post-Cold War period (1989-present) with a focus on transnational works dealing with the global immanence of terror, warfare and genocide. Her other areas of research and publication include, language politics in postcolonial India, dalit life stories, South Asian diasporic fiction, cultural histories of mixed race, and the globalization of Bollywood, the popular cinema from Bombay/Mumbai as creative industry.
In 2007, Debjani was elected a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
Selected Publications:
Books:
2008 Caste and Dalit Lifeworlds: Postcolonial Perspectives, New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2008
2007, Edward Said: The Legacy of a Public Intellectual, (co-edited with Ned Curthoys), Melbourne University Press
2007, Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Relationality: Global Perspectives, (co-edited with John Docker), London: Routledge, New Delhi: Orient Longman
2005, Caste, Colonialism and Counter-Modernity: Notes on a Postcolonial Hermeneutics of Caste, London: Routledge.
1999, Impossible Selves: Cultural Readings of Identity, (co-edited with J.Lo, et al), Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
Edited Special Issue Journals
2007, “Pigments of the Imagination”, co-edited with Penny Edwards and Jacqueline Lo. Journal of Intercultural Studies, Vol. 28, No.1
2005, “Gandhi, Nonviolence and Modernity”, co-edited with John Docker, Borderlands, December
2004, “Cultural Politics and Iconography” co-edited with Mandy Thomas, Humanities Research, Vol. 11, No.2, October-November
Book chapters
2009 ‘The Language Question in India’, Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature, ed. Ato Quayson, Cambridge University Press (contracted)
2009, ‘Dalit Life-Stories’, Cambridge Companion to Modern Indian Culture, ed. Vasudha Dalmia, Cambridge University Press, (contracted)
2007, “Said, World Literature and Global Comparatism”, Edward Said: Legacy of a Public Intellectual, eds. D.Ganguly and Ned Curthoys Melbourne University Press
2007, “Vernacular Cosmopolitans: Gandhi and Ambedkar”, Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Relationality; Global Perspectives, eds. D.Ganguly and John Docker, London: Routledge and New Delhi: Orient Longman
2007, “Global State of War and Moral Vernaculars of Nonviolence: Reading Gandhi in a New World Order”, Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Relationality: Global Perspectives, eds. D.Ganguly and John Docker, London: Routledge and New Delhi: Orient Longman
2004 "Velutha, Ammu, Death: The Aporia of the Aesthetic", Words for their own Sake: Literature in The Age of Economic Rationalism, eds. Jan Lloyd Jones and Kathie Barnes, Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
2001 "Between Marx and Foucault, Or 'Whither Subaltern?': Perspectives from South Asian Historiography", in Lim Chee Seng, et al.(eds) Sharing a Commonwealth. Kuala Lampur: ACLALS in Association With The Department of English, University of Malaya.
2000 "Transgressing Sacred Visions: Taslima, Rushdie and the Indian Subcontinent", in Ralph Crane and Radhika Mohanram (eds), Shifting Continents/Colliding Cultures: Diaspora Writing of the Indian Subcontinent Amsterdam: Rodophi.2000 "The Subaltern in Shadow: Reading Aboriginal Women's Life-Stories" in Adrian Mitchell and Cynthia Vanden Driesen (eds), New Directions in Australian Studies, New Delhi: Prestige Publications.
1999 "Their History, (Y)our Memories: Provincializing Europe in Dalit Historiography", in Jacqueline Lo et al (eds) Impossible Selves: Cultural Readings Of Identity, Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
1998 "G.N. Devy: The Nativist as Postcolonial", in Makarand Paranjape (ed.) The Nativist Tradition in Indian Literary Criticism, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.
1996 "Of Dreams, Digressions and Dislocations: The Surreal Fiction of Sunetra Gupta", in Viney Kirpal (ed.), The Postmodern Indian English Novel, Bombay: Allied Publishers.
1995 "The Literature of Dispossession: Subversion of Elitist Nationalism in Dalit and Aboriginal Texts", in Phil Butterrs, Caroline Guerin and Amanda Nettlebeck (eds), Crossing Lines: Formations of Australian Culture, Adelaide: Association for the Study of Australian Literature.
Refereed Journal Articles
2008, ‘Literary Globalism in the New Millennium’, Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1,
2008 ‘Tryst with Postcolonial Destiny’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vo. 43, No.7, 16 February
2008, ‘Global Literary Refractions: Reading Pascale Casanova’s The World Republic of Letters’, English Academy Review: Southern African Journal of Literary Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1, June.
2007, ‘100 Days in Rwanda: Trauma Aesthetics and Humanist Ethics in an Age of Terror’, Humanities Research, Vol. 15, No.2.
2007, “From Empire to Empire: Writing the Transnational Anglo-Indian Self in Australia”, Journal of Intercultural Studies, Vol. 28, No.1
2007, “Pigments of the Imagination: Theorising, Performing and Historicising Mixed Race”, co-written with Penny Edwards and Jacqueline Lo, Journal of Intercultural Studies, Vol. 28, No.1, Feb
2006, “Global Literary Refractions: Reading Pascale Casanova’s The World Republic of Letters”, Refereed Conference proceedings of Annual conference of AUETSA, SAVAL and SAACLALS, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
2006, “Postcolonialism and Ethnohistory: Saurabh Dube’s Stitches on Time”, review article, NZ Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2, December
2005, “Convergent Cosmopolitics in the Age of Empire: Gandhi and Ambedkar in World History”, Borderlands, vol. 4, No. 3
2005, “‘Yet Another English “Gift”: The Role of English Bhikkus in Indian Dalit Buddhist Conversions: 1970-1990”, JSL: Journal of the School of Languages and Culture Studies, JNU, New Delhi, No.4, Autumn
2004, “Cultural Politics and Iconography”, Humanities Research, Vol.11, No.2, Oct-Nov
2004, "Buddha, Bhakti and Superstition: A Post-Secular Reading of Dalit Conversion", Postcolonial Studies, April, Vol.7, No.1
2002 "History's Implosions: A Benjaminian Reading of Ambedkar", Journal of Narrative Theory, Vol. 32, No.3, Fall.
2002 "Caste as Language-Weave: Exceeding Sociological Readings of Caste, Span, Journal of the South Pacific Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, No.52, April.
2001 "Of Ordinary, UnRushdie-like Lives: The Latest Fiction of Amit Chaudhuri", CRNLE Journal, Flinders University, Vol. 3, No. 1.
2000 "Can the Dalit Speak: Of Caste, Postcoloniality and the New Humanities", South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol XXIII, Special Issue.
2000, 'Robert Deliege: The Untouchables of India', The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 1.1, April
1995 "Handcuffed to History: The Indian Political Reception of The Moor’s Last Sigh", Journal of P.E.N International, Peter Day (ed.), Vol. 46, No. 2.
1994 "Of Colonies and Literary Heritages: After Amnesia as a Postcolonial Text", New Quest, September-October.
Professional societies:
Fellow, The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
Member, Modern Languages Association
Member, the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS)
Member, Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA)
Member, International PEN (Sydney Chapter)
Indian Representative on the International P.E.N Women Writers' Committee (IPWWC) - 1994 - 2000
Life Member, The Royal Asiatic Society, Bombay, India
Graduate Supervision:
- Ida Nursoo, ‘In the Waiting Room of Humanity: The Consequence of Kant for Cosmopolitan Futures after Derrida’, Chair of Supervisory panel
- Diah Agung Esfandari, ‘Javanese Mystical Folklores and Horror Urban Legend Movies’, Chair of Supervisory panel
- Leigh Toop, RSH, ‘Form, Materiality and Meaning in the Work of Three Thai Installation Artists’ – Chair of Supervisory Panel
- Visakesa Chandrasekaram, RSH, “Confessions of Tigers: Documenting the impact of Counter-Terrorism Laws and Human Rights Violations in Sri Lanka Through Creative writing”, - Chair
- Josh Wodak, RSH, “Interrogating Interactive Interfaces: New Media Art” – Chair
- Susan Laganza, RSH, “Ethnopoetics of Death and Mourning” – Supervisor
- Dawn Mirapuri, English, Faculty of Arts, “Anglophone Arab Women Writers: Voices from the Mashriq and El-Mahjar” – Supervisor
- Melissa Lowell, Politics, RSSS, ‘Distinctive Features of Settler Colonialism’, - Advisor
- Usha Natarajan, College of Law, “Postcolonial Readings of International Law in the Context of Iraq” – Advisor, PhD completed 2008
- Simon Choo, RSH, “Malaysian and Australian Food Identities: Migration, Tradition, authenticity and Change” – Chair, PhD completed, 2008
- Gokcen Karanfil, RSH, “Transnational Media and Diasporic Communities: Reflections on Turkish-Australian Lives” – Supervisor, PhD completed, 2007
- Timothy Amos, RSPAS, “The Burakumin in Pre-Modern Japan, 1600-1868” – Supervisor, PhD completed, 2006.
Media Attention:
3 July, 2007, ABC Radio Interview on British bombings, Muslim protests against Salman Rushdie’s knighthood and the controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses
19 April, 2007, ABC Radio Interview on Bollywood poster art exhibitions at NGV, Melbourne and Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, and the impact of Bollywood in Australia
18 November, 2006, ABC Radio Interview on Indian film Festival in Perth and ANU-Monash workshop on Bollywood
26 October 2006, ABC Radio Interview on ANU-Monash Bollywood workshop, in the context of the Indian film festival then running.
2 Feb, 2005, Breakfast Radio interview on 3CR Community Radio (Melbourne), topic: "The tsunami and Dalit aid disbursement"
