FACULTY PROFILE

Personal Details

Name: Dr. Smita Gandotra
Designation: Assistant Professor
Department: English
Email: sgandotra@ststephens.edu

Education

• M.Phil. (University of Delhi), Ph.D. (University of Chicago)
• B. A., M. A., Hindu College, University of Delhi; M. Phil., Department of English, University of
  Delhi.

Awards

• Mellon Dissertation Write-up Fellowship, 2012
• Nicholson Graduate Fellowship 2012, 2010

Professional Experience

• Visiting Postdoctoral Fellowship, King’s College, London, 2015-2017.
• Max Weber Foundation Transnational Research Group on Education and Poverty.

Professional Development

• Centre for the Professional Development of Higher Education, University of Delhi, Refresher
  Course, Gender Studies, January-February 2019.
• Iran Cultural House, Delhi, Certificate Course, Persian Language, April 2005-February 2006.
• Centre for the Professional Development of Higher Education, University of Delhi, Refresher
  Course, Indian Literature: 1750-2000, December 2004 – January 2005.
• National Museum Institute of History of Art, Conservation and Museology, Certificate Course, Art
  Appreciation, July-December, 2003.
• Sarai-CSDS, Certificate Course, Introduction to Film Studies, May 2003.

Teaching Experience

• Assistant Professor, St. Stephen’s College, 2000-the present.
• Previously, Lecturer in English, Janki Devi Memorial College, Indraprastha College for Women.

Courses Taught

• Undergraduate: Modern Indian Writing in English Translation, Popular Literature, Indian Writing in
  English, Twentieth Century Indian Literature, Classical Literature, Contemporary Literature,
  Postcolonial Literatures
• Postgraduate: Indian Classical Literature, The Novel in India

Administrative Assignment

• Staff Advisor, English Literary Society, St. Stephen’s College – July 2017-the present; July 2001-
  October 2007.
• Workload and Timetable Committee, Department of English, St. Stephen’s College – June 2017- the
  present.
• Chair, Department of English, St. Stephen’s College – February-July 2016
• Member of Panel, Department of English, Faculty Interviews, St. Stephen’s College – 2017, 2016.
• Member of Panel, Undergraduate and Postgraduate Admissions, Department of English, St.
  Stephen’s College – 2018, 2017, 2014, 2006, 2004.
• Assistant Superintendent of Examinations, St. Stephen’s College – May-June 2014

Publications

• “What did Sundaria Read: Hindi Books from Bareilly, c. 1870,” Indian Economic and Social History
  Review, 53.2, April-June 2016.
• “A Good General Knowledge of Geography: Learning to Read in Benares, c. 1870,” Working Paper
  Series 10, Max Weber Foundation Transnational Research Group on Education and Poverty, 2017.

Work in Progress

• (with Ulrike Stark) Devrani Jethani ki Kahani or The Tale of Two Sisters-in-Law (1870), by Pandit
  Gauridatt, Translated with an Introduction and Critical Apparatus, Delhi: Primus. Forthcoming.
• Associate Editor, The Stephanian, January 2018-the present.

Invited Talks, Seminars, Conferences

• “Poetry, Pedagogy and Justice”, Refresher Course on Gender Studies, University of Delhi, February 2019.
• “London Yatra: Towards a Vernacular Syllabary of Global Travel,” The Politics and Poetics of South
  Asian Modernism: Hindi and Urdu Debates, Symposium, The 47th. Annual Conference on South Asia,
  University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 2018.
• “The Laughing Horse: Or Unlikely Lessons in Undergraduate Teaching,” Orientation Programme,
  Jamia Millia Islamia, Seminar Presentation, December 2017.
• “Strishiksha: Towards a Conceptual History,” Workshop, Max Weber Foundation Transnational
  Research Group on Education and Poverty, India International Centre, Delhi, November 2015.“On Reading the ‘Reading Woman’ of Hindi Print Culture,” Department of Middle Eastern, South
  Asian and African Studies, Columbia University, December 2014.
• “On Letters, Love and Personhood,” Humanities and Social Sciences Colloquium, Singapore University of
  Technology and Design, August 2014.
• “Shabdon ka Bhav: Babu Shyamsundardas of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha,” Department of South
  Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago, February 2014.
• “On Reading the ‘Reading Woman’ of Hindi Print Culture.” Faculty Seminar, St. Stephen’s College,
  University of Delhi, October 2013.
• “On Women Writers, Stri Upayogi Sahitya and the Sense of a Public, 1870-1930.” The Theory and
  Practice in South Asia Workshop, University of Chicago, March 2013.
• “On Reading the ‘Reading Woman’ of Hindi Print Culture.” Annual Conference, Association for Asian
  Studies, San Diego, March 2013.
• “The Fine Print: Books for a Female Audience.” Annual Conference, Association for Asian Studies,
  Toronto, March 2012.
• “The Authority in Advice: An Analysis of the Rhetoric of an Advice Manual in Hindi.” The 38th.
  Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 2009.
• “Embodying the Domestic.” Eleventh Cultural Studies Workshop, organized by Centre for
  Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, January 2006.
• “Can Goribi Speak: Silence and Subjection in Ismat Chughtai’s Short Stories.” Refresher Course
  on Indian Literature, University of Delhi, December 2004.