Dr. Sarbani Banerjee

Education: 

• Ph.D., Comparative Literature, The University of Western Ontario, Canada (2011-15) Dissertation title: “More or Less” Refugee?: Bengal Partition in Literature and Cinema, Supervisor: Prof. Nandi Bhatia 

• M.A., Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, India (2010)

• B.A., Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, India (2008)

• Honors and Awards:

• ICSSR Travel Grant (for IAFOR Conference 2024 at University College London) – 27 June 2024

• Topper, merit list of Communicative English, College Service Commission, West Bengal, India – 28 May 2019

• Dr. S. Radhakrishnan Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Humanities and Social Sciences- April 2017 (INR 18,00,000)

• Recipient of the Ontario Trillium Scholarship- September 2011- August 2015 ($160,000)

• Awarded the Gold Medal and Prof. Gopal Halder Memorial Gold centered Silver Medal for topping the M.A. program in Comparative Literature by Jadavpur University- December 2010

• Recipient of the WGRS Comparative Literature Fund - September 2014 ($2,320)

• Recipient of the WGRS Comparative Literature Fund - September 2013 ($2,320)

• Recipient of the Departmental Travel Grant 2013 and 2014 (for ACLA conference) – March 2013 and March 2014 ($390.65 and $682.21)

• Recipient of the Graduate Thesis Research Award – February 2014 ($1,000)

• Recipient of the WGRS Comparative Literature Fund - September 2012 ($2,948)

• Recipient of the FAH Dean’s Entrance Scholarship - September 2011 ($2,000)

• Qualified for the Western Graduate Research Fund as a Ph.D. candidate (The University of Western Ontario) - March, 2011 ($26,900)

NPTEL/SWAYAM courses:

1. Partition of India in Print Media and Cinema - running since July-December 2022

2. Narrative Mode and Fiction (Renamed as ‘Fiction: Epics, Novels and Poetry') - running since January-May 2023

3. Performative Gender and Religions in South Asia – running since July-December 2023

4. Refugee, Migration, Diaspora – running since January-May 2025

5. Tribal Studies in India: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Approaches – ongoing (July-Dec 2025)

Seminars, conferences and other contributions:  

1. “Signature Move – Reading the South Asian Tale of Lesbian Love in Diaspora” and “Mere Dilbar Mere Jani – Whither Exists Love and Identity?” –  NeMLA Convention – March 2025.

2. Invited lecture – “Capacity Building Programme on Research Methodology and Academic Writing jointly organised by Doon University and Indian Institute of Technnology (IIT), Roorkee” – 7-18 January 2025.

3. Invited expert for Policy Roundtable in Collaboration with “GOAL: Gender Oriented Adoptive Transformation Cross-Learning for Climate Change and Disaster Risk Resilience among India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Japan” – 7-13 January 2025.

4. Supervised two TMI projects – “Design of smart dustbins” and “E-Learning Platforms for Household Women” – August – November 2024.

5. Organized a workshop entitled “Santal as a Performative People” with the sponsorship of Faculty Initiation Grant, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, DBS House, Kolkata – 30 September- 3 October, 2024.

6. Keynote address, Innovative Teaching Methods in ELT – "INTERNATIONAL VIRTUAL CONFERENCE ON PERSPECTIVES FROM BASIC SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES - NEC-IVCPBSH 2024," organized by the Department of Basic Sciences and Humanities, Narasaraopeta Engineering College, Narasaraopet, Andhra Pradesh, India – 20 July 2024.

7. Presenter and senior reviewer, “Queer Rethinking of Fairytales and Impossibility of the ‘Happily Ever After’” – International conference organized by IAFOR and SOAS, University College London – 11-15 July 2024.

8. Completion of NPTEL internship by Ms. Barnana Baidya on the topic- “Beyond Binary: Portrayal of a Genderless World through The Left Hand of Darkness and Lilith’s Brood as a Modern-Day Utopia” – May 2024.

9. Chair and presenter, “Body-Politics in Warfront: A Critical Reading on the Disabled/ Amputated Body in War Cinema” in the Three Day National Conference on Reimagining Discourse: Language, Literature and Contemporary Communication organized by Department of English and Other Indian and Foreign Languages, Vignan University, Andhra Pradesh – 29 – 1 May 2024.

10. Invited talk, FDP on “Resonating Literary Continuities: An Exploration of Classical and Contemporary Voices” by Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology (Deemed to be University) – 2 April 2024.

11. Chair, Technical Session 7 – “Literary and Cultural Paradigms of Uttarakhand” –17-18 February 2024.

12. Presenter, “Ecocritical Literature in Indian Vernaculars” – MLA Convention – January 2024 (virtual).

13. Presenter, “Reconceptualizing Colonialism in Postcolonial South Asia’” – MLA Convention – January 2024 (virtual).

14. Organized a three-day national conference “Understanding the Santali Cosmos and Performative Religion of the Santal” sponsored by Faculty Initiation Grant, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee in collaboration with Sido Kanhu Murmu University, Dumka, on 11th-13th December 2023.

15. Presenter, “Reading the Personal Becoming of an Adivasi Girl from Assam” – CLAI Convention – November 2023.

16. “Studying the ‘Invisible Resilience’ from the Margins” –  NeMLA Convention – March 2023

17. “Nagarkirtan – Reading the (Miscarriage of) Gender Performance in a Cityscape” – NeMLA Convention – March 2023

18. External reviewer for the course 'Introduction to Drama in English' proposed by IIT Mandi – October 2022

19. Chair and presenter, “Reclaiming the Past from the Margins – A Study of Counter-histories and Micro-Narratives of Partition (1947)” – ACLA Convention – June, 2022

20. Organized a workshop on Santal Religion and Its Performances organized with the sponsorship of Faculty Initiation Grant, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee in collaboration with Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (Deemed to be) University (KISS-DU) – 19-22 June, 2022

21. Invited talk, FDP on "Multidisciplinary Research and Teaching Paradigm in Humanities" – VIT Chennai – 27 April, 2022

22. Presenter, “Sadhguru, Humour, and Good Life” – Workshop on ‘Good Life’ and Development: Exploring the nexus between two entangled concepts in contemporary India and beyond, organized by IIT Madras and Aarhus University – March 2022

23. Presenter, “Studying the ‘Necessary Death’ of the ‘Happily Ever After’” – NeMLA Convention – March 2022

24. Organized a workshop on Santali Religion and Performance organized under the sponsorship of Faculty Initiation Grant, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee – 20-23 October, 2021.

25. Presenter, “Suicidal Motherhood, Love at Gunpoint: Reading Disaster in Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns” – ACLA Convention – April 2021

26. Resource person, FDP on Recent Research Trends in Literature – NIT Andhra Pradesh – March 2021

27. Presenter, “Iron Ladies at the Margins – A Comparative Reading of Dil Se and Gulaab Gang” – NeMLA Convention – March 2021

28. Resource person, “Good Teaching Practices for Higher Education” (TEQIP) – IIT Roorkee – 18 November 2020

29. Panelist, “South Asian Canadian Stage: Understanding the Questions of Identity and Un-belonging”: organized by International Conference on Literature 2020, School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia: “Asian Diasporic Literature: Past, Present and Future” – 29 and 30 July, 2020

30. Invited talk, “The Significance of a Cyclic Life among the Santal of Eastern India and the Canadian Indigenous People.” Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, 9 March 2020

31. Panelist, “‘Jibon’ and ‘I’: A Fragmented Life-Writing by a Dalit Refugee”: organized by Department of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Delhi: “Unravelling Lives: Literary Encounters and Life Writing” – 5 – 7 March, 2020

32. Panelist, “Performance and Being: A Comparative Study of the Canadian First Nations and the Santal Community”:organized by the Centre for Canadian Studies, Jadavpur University: “Canada and/in the Global South: Fragmented Identities and New Partnerships” – 4 - 6 February, 2020

33. Panelist, “The 'OTHER' In The Public Space – Studying The Dalit Bengali Refugee In Post-Partition West Bengal”: organized by Department of Sociology, St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata: “Contemporary Caste Gender and Minority Questions in West Bengal and Bangladesh: Some Explorations” – 31- 2 November, 2019

34. Panelist, “Generating Connections and Continuity: Mystics in India”: organized by Comparative Literature Association of India(CLAI) Biennial International Conference at Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad, – 11-14 March, 2019

35. Panelist, “Documentary – A Biased Optique of Nationhood: Readings of ‘Nanook of the North,’ ‘Nass River Indians,’ and ‘In the Land of War Canoes,’” in the proceedings of international conference organized by The Centre for Canadian Studies in collaboration with Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute: “Transitions in Policy, Resilience and Identity: New Challenges in Indo-Canadian Studies” – 6 - 8 February, 2019

36. Panelist (invited), “Tattoos of Everyday, Tattoos of Conflict: What those Bodies Meant After the Partition,” in the international convention of Northeast Modern Language Association: “Global Spaces, Local Landscapes and Imagined Worlds,” organized by University of Pittsburgh – 12-15 April, 2018

37. Invited talk, “Partition of Bengal: Motives and Aftermaths, and Significance of Religion in Post-colonial India.” Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, 9 March 2018 

38. Panelist, “Canada As the New Noah’s Ark: Human, Animal and God In An Allegorical Multicultural Nation-State,” in the proceedings of international conference organized by The Centre for Canadian Studies: “150 Years of ‘Solitude’: Narratives on Canada’s Conflicts and Reconciliations” – 9 - 11 January, 2018

39. Presenter, “Partition or its Phantasm?: Sixty-Five Years After the Cracking of Bengal” for the conference “After Partition: Postmemories of Partition 1947,” held at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur – 4 and 5 January, 2018

40. Presenter, “The Significance of Space in Dalit Bengali Refugee’s Experience” for the conference “Partition in Bengal: Looking Back after 70 Years,” held at Victoria Memorial Hall and the Indian Museum, Kolkata in collaboration with New Zealand Research Institute – 17 and 18 August 2017

41. Invited talk, “English Language Training for Engineering Students.” School of Humanities, Social Sciences & Management, Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar, 7 August 2017

42. Invited talk, ““More or Less” Refugee?: Bengal Partition in Literature and Cinema.”Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, 8 May 2017

43. Invited talk, “Refugee, a Heterogeneous Identity Marker as Represented in Post-Partition Bengali Literature and Cinema.”Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, 4 November 2016

44. Invited talk, “Partition, Its Motives and Aftermaths, and the Imports of Religion in Post-Partition India and Canada.”Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur, 27 September 2016

45. Presenter, “From Connoisseurs of Art to Victims of Flesh-trade: The ‘Other Woman’ in Shyam Benegal’s Mandi” for the conference “Gendered Myths of Conflict & Un-belonging from a Comparative Literature Perspective,” organized by School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi – August 2 and 3, 2016

46. Reviewer, “Constructive Escapism in the Periphery of the Empire: A study of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and   Cabeza de Vaca,” for The Scattered Pelican, a graduate student journal of Comparative Literature at the University of Western Ontario – February 24, 2016

47. Ph.D. Public Lecture,““More or Less Refugee?”: Bengal Partition in Literature and Cinema,” Department of Comparative Literature, Modern Languages and Literatures, The University of Western Ontario, Canada, 24 August, 2015

48. Moderator, Panel 12: “Translating the Trance of the Original” in the 17th Annual Graduate Student Conference “Trans- and Trance,” organized by the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism, The University of Western Ontario – March 5-7, 2015

49. Presenter, “Problematizing the “Politics of Sentiment” through a Study of Dalit Bengali Partition Literature” in Comparative Literature Research Forum, Department of Comparative Literature, Modern Languages and Literatures, The University of Western Ontario – November 26, 2014

50. Panelist, ““I Don't Think Therefore I Am Not”: Milan Kundera's Expeditions through a Brain-dead Czechoslovakia,” in the international convention of American Comparative Literature Association:-“Capitals,” organized by New York University – March 20-23, 2014

51. Presenter, “When to “Open It” Only Meant Untying the Pyjama Strings: Partition and Narrativity Gone Astray”: in the 16th Annual Graduate Student Conference “Brevity,” organized by Comparative Literature and Hispanic Studies, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, The University of Western Ontario – March 6-8, 2014

52. Presenter (invited), “Being a blank sign in the bhadralok-infested post-Partition Calcutta”: organized by “Partition Literature: Memory & Inheritance of Self,” Netaji Subhas Open University, Kolkata – February 8-10, 2014

53. Respondent, “Celebrity Capital and Cinematic Colonialism: Analyzing Sexual Trauma in Angelina Jolie’s In the Land of Blood and Honey” presented by Miranda Niittynen in the Third Women’s Studies and Feminist Research Graduate Student Symposium 2013-2014, The University of Western Ontario – December 5, 2013

54. Presenter, “‘Who Has the Muscle to Want?’: A Critical Analysis of Timothy Findley’s Not Wanted on the Voyage” in Comparative Literature Research Forum, Department of Comparative Literature, Modern Languages and Literatures, The University of Western Ontario – November 20, 2013

55. Panelist, “Comeback of the Boomerang – Thomas King’s Short Stories in the Context of Linguistic Aporia” in the international convention of American Comparative Literature Association:- “Global Positioning Systems,” organized by the University of Toronto – April 4-7, 2013

56. Panelist, “Laughing it Over Inside-out: How Comedy Casts its Spell in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata” in the 15th Annual Graduate Student Conference : - “Good Laugh, Bad Laugh, Ugly Laugh, My Laugh,” organized by Comparative Literature and Hispanic studies, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, The University of Western Ontario – March 1-3, 2013

57. Panelist, proceedings of Comparative Literature Association of India (CLAI) organized by Saurashtra University, Gujarat, India in collaboration with Sahitya Akademy (Delhi): “Expanding Territories: Comparative Literature in the 21st Century” – March 29-31, 2010

58. Presenter, proceedings of international conference organized by The Centre for Canadian Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India: “Land of Promise: Stories of the Immigrant in Multicultural Canada” – February 3-5, 2010                             

59. Presenter, proceedings of international conference organized by The Centre for Canadian Studies in collaboration with The School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India: “The Reality of Indigenous Woman: Canada and India” – February 5-6, 2009

Memberships:

1. Library Member of Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture (2010-2019) 

2. Member of American Comparative Literature Association (2013-15, 2021-22)

3. Member of Canadian Comparative Literature Association (2013-2016)

4. Member of North-east Modern Language Association (2018-19, 2021-22, 2022-23)

5. Member of Modern Language Association (2023-24)