Smriti Singh
Chair
I am a Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Patna. I have been working here since 2008. Earlier I was at the Department of English, Ranchi College. I have been a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at the University of Texas at Austin from 2005-06. I have written one monograph on Krupabai Satthianadhan and have co-edited two books. My areas of research and interest are postcolonial and diasporic writings, retelling of myths, oral and indigenous writings. I look forward to an engaging and enriching term with Postcolonial Studies Association.
David Firth
Executive Secretary
I am an Honorary Research Fellow in English Literature at the University of Manchester, having won an AHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2019, as part of the Creative Economy Engagement Fund. The postdoctoral funding allowed me to develop public engagement activities on the theme of ‘virtual reality as a form of postcolonial storytelling’. The research explores how immersive virtual experiences may encourage forms of ‘postcolonial empathy’ and foster new perspectives on difficult heritage and our shared colonial past. I am also currently completing my first monograph, Nadine Gordimer and the World-System: Apartheid as Racial Capitalism, based on my doctoral research. I completed my PhD in English in 2018, and played a key role in developing the profile of postcolonial studies at Manchester. I worked for 2 years as Lead Organiser of the Manchester Postcolonial Studies Group, leading the monthly reading group and running two annual series of the Postcolonial Atelier. I joined the PSA as Executive Secretary in 2017 and I was Co-Chair for PSA Convention 2019.
Francesca Mussi
Senior Newsletter Editor
I am an independent scholar, having recently completed a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship in the Department of Humanities at Northumbria University. I am currently working on a monograph examining how Indigenous literature can complement or challenge the work carried out by the Indian Residential School Truth and Reconciliation Commission. My research interests also include postcolonial theory, gender studies, trauma studies, ecocriticism, and South African literature. In May 2020, my first book, Literary Legacies of the South African TRC: Fictional Journeys into Trauma, Truth and Reconciliation, was published by Palgrave Macmillan and demonstrated the value of the TRC as a literary subject in contemporary South African fiction.
Jennifer Gray
Newsletter Editor
I teach Modern British and Contemporary Anglophone literature as a tenured Assistant Professor at Tennessee Technological University (TTU) in Cookeville, Tennessee, USA. From 1999-2018, I taught Composition and Sophomore Literature courses at TTU. In 2018, I received my PhD from Middle Tennessee State University and continued my career at TTU. In April 2021, my first book, Culinary Diplomacy’s Role in the Immigrant Experience: Fiction and Memoirs of Middle Eastern Women, was published by Rowman & Littlefield. My research interests include immigration, postcolonial theory, British literature 1900-1950, and Contemporary Black British, Asian, and Minority Ethnic literatures.
Ahmed Joudar
Email Officer
I am a Doctoral candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature, University of Szeged, Hungary, originally from Iraq. I obtained my BA in English language and literature from the University of Kufa, Iraq. I completed my M.A. in English literature, University of Shiats, India. My doctoral research is at the intersection of Postcolonial studies, Canadian literature, exile, migration, multiculturalism, and transcultural identity. In Canadian studies, I am especially interested in cross-cultural writers who could live in-between different cultures. I have been a member of the Postcolonial Studies Association since 2017 and served on the convention committee for the PSA Convention 2019.
Luca Raimondi
Postgraduate Officer/Early Career Representative
I am a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at King’s College London and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. I received my PhD in Comparative and Postcolonial Literature from the University of Bologna and an MRes in Contemporary India from King’s College London. I was a Visiting Research Fellow at Brown University and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, University of the Witwatersrand. I have taught contemporary and postcolonial literature, as well as English linguistics, and my research interests include South Asian fiction, literary and cultural geographies of the Indian Ocean, and Afro-Asian print cultures of the early decolonisation period.
Vacant
Website Officer
The Website officer position is currently vacant and we are looking for a member to put themselves forward for this role. The PSA website is currently managed by our Executive Secretary, David Firth.
Alberto Fernandez-Carbajal
Vice-Chair
I am Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Roehampton (London). My commitment to postcolonial studies was cemented at the University of Leeds, where I undertook an MA in Postcolonial Literary and Cultural Studies and a PhD in English Literature. I have written two monographs, Compromise and Resistance in Postcolonial Writing: E. M. Forster’s Legacy (2014), based on my PhD thesis, and Queer Muslim Diasporas in Contemporary Literature and Film (2019), which I wrote while holding a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship based at the University of Leicester. I have been Postgraduate and Early Career Representative for the PSA and I was one of the main co-organisers of the first PSA Convention in 2015. As Vice-Chair, I shadow Anshuman and generally oversee the smooth running of our Association. I feel proud of serving such a friendly, personable, and supportive professional network of postcolonialists.
Jenni Ramone
Treasurer
I am Senior Lecturer in Postcolonial Studies and co-director of the Postcolonial Studies Centre at Nottingham Trent University, home of the Changing Worl)ds Network. I am author of Postcolonial Theories (Palgrave 2011), Salman Rushdie and Translation (Bloomsbury 2013), editor of The Bloomsbury Introduction to Postcolonial Writing: New Contexts, New Narratives, New Debates (2017) and am currently completing Postcolonial Literature and the Local Literary Marketplace: Locating the Reader (forthcoming with Palgrave), a monograph which compares reading cultures and meanings in Cuba, Nigeria, South Asia, and the UK. My subsequent book project is on global gender studies and C21st literature. I teach postcolonial literatures and devised an innovative teaching strand combining literary cultures and employability.
Paola Prieto López
Membership Secretary
I am Adjunct Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Oviedo (Spain). I worked as a Marie-Curie early-stage researcher for the EU-funded GRACE project (Gender and Cultures of Equality in Europe) between 2016 and 2019 and I completed my PhD in Black British Women’s Theatre at the University of Oviedo in 2020. I am also a member of the research group “Intersections: Contemporary Literatures, Cultures and Theories”. My research interests include Black British theatre, diaspora, solidarity and gender studies.
Priyanka Tripathi
Newsletter Editor
I am an Associate Professor of English and Head, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Patna (India). I have published extensively with Indian Literature, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, GeoHumanities, Economic and Political Weekly amongst others. I have received several grants: JIWS fellowship 2021-22 (Bridgewater State University), Shastri Conference and Lecture Series Grant (SCLSG) 2021-22, Postcolonial Association grant 2020-21, CIIL conference grant 2020, amongst others. I have also worked on several government-sponsored projects related to gender issues. I work in the area of Gender Studies, South Asian Fiction, GeoHumanities and Graphic Novels.
Esha Sil
E-mail Officer
I joined the PSA in March 2015; I served as a convention committee member from September 2016-17, and co-organised the 2017 PSA Convention, before beginning my current role as the PSA’s email bulletin coordinator. I received my doctorate from the School of English, University of Leeds; this was followed by the completion of my postdoctoral fellowship under the Zukunftsphilologie programme at Freie Universität Berlin. I’m presently working as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Cultures, University of Helsinki, for the ERC-funded CALLIOPE project. I’ve also been appointed as a visiting research fellow in the Department of English, King’s College London, from April 2019-20. My work reappraises the cultural production of postcolonial South Asian and Bengali modernities, via a wide range of subject areas, including vernacular capitalist discourses, everyday language-practices, children’s literature and folklore, the 1947 Partition, and the vocal articulations of political representation and citizenship in nineteenth-century Bengal and Britain.
Rabaha Arshad
Social Media Officer
Rabaha is a graduate of the University of Glasgow, UK where she completed a Masters in Children’s Literature and Literacies with Distinction. At present, she is working as lecturer at Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore, Pakistan where she teaches English Language and Children’s Literature to undergraduate students. She has been associated with the PSA since 2014.
