PROFILE

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Education 

BA (Hons), English Literature, Dhaka University: First Class First (Pope Memorial Gold Medal)

MA, English Literature, Dhaka University: First Class First (Justice Amiruddin Gold Medal)

MA, Applied Linguistics (Second Language Learning & Teaching), University of Queensland, Australia (AusAid Scholar)

ABD, Faculty of English & Wadham College, University of Oxford, UK: Commonwealth Academic Staff Scholar & Charles Wallace Scholar. 

 

Research Interests: History, culture, politics, and literature of colonial and postcolonial South Asia. 

Select Publications: 

1.  “ব্রেখটের কবিতায় ব্যক্তিগত শক্তি ও সম্পর্কের টানাপোড়েন” (tr. The Public and the Private in Brecht’s Poetry),  সাহিত্য পত্রিকা (tr.The Literary Research Journal), University of Dhaka, Vol. 42: 2, 1999, pp. 58-67. 
2. “Revisiting Chomsky”: Journal of the Institute of Modern Languages, Dhaka University, Vol. June 2001, pp. 47-53.
3. “Is Applied Linguistics Linguistics-Applied? A Critique of Recent Literature”: Harvest, Jahangirnagar Studies in Literature, Jahangirnagar University, Vol. 17, 2001-02, pp. 137-42.
4. “Signs Propagated as Wonders: The Politics of Imperial Texts and the Production of an Other Chaudhuri”: Panini: North South Studies in Language and Literature, North South University, Dhaka, Vol. 1, 2002, pp. 127-145.
5. “Monitoring the Monitor: A Critique of Krashen’s Five Hypotheses”. The Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics, Dhaka University, Vol. 2: 4, August 2010, pp. 139-46. 
6. “Reading Nirad Chaudhuri: Reading the Indo-British Encounter”: Harvest, Jahangirnagar Studies in Literature, Jahangirnagar University, Vol. 31, 2015-16, pp. 107-16. 
7. “Social Reform in Colonial Bengal: Revisiting Vidyasagar”, Philosophy and Progress, Dhaka University, Vols. LV-LVI, 2014 (2016), pp. 109-24.
8. “বিদ্যাসাগরের সামাজিক যুদ্ধঃ নারী প্রশ্ন প্রসঙ্গ”  (tr. Vidyasagar’s ‘Social Warfare’: The Woman Question), মহাজীবনের মহাপথিক বিদ্যাসাগর  (tr. Vidyasagar, the Great Traveller of Life), বিদ্যাসাগর বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় স্মারক গ্রন্থ, সম্পাদকঃ সেবক জানা, কবিতিকাঃ মেদিনীপুর, পশ্চিমবঙ্গ,ভারত, ২০২০, পৃষ্ঠা ৫৮-৮১।  
9. বিদ্যাসাগরের সামাজিক যুদ্ধ” (tr. Vidyasagar’s ‘Social Warfare’), নতুন দিগন্ত, সম্পাদকঃ সিরাজুল ইসলাম চৌধুরী, ঊনবিংশ বর্ষ প্রথম সংখ্যা, অক্টোবর-ডিসেম্বর, ঢাকা, ২০২০, পৃষ্ঠা ৮২-১০৬, (পুনর্মুদ্রণ)। 
10. “ 'প্রাণান্ত স্বীকারেও পরাঙ্মুখ নহি' : বিদ্যাসাগর ও বিধবা বিবাহ আন্দোলন",  Asiatic Society of Bangladesh General Meeting Lecture Series Publication, 18 December 2021, pp. 3-26. 
11. “Vidyasagar’s Campaign for Widow Marriage: Successes, ‘Failures’, Legacies” (forthcoming). 

 

Teaching Experience from 1998 to 2025: Full-time and adjunct positions 

In Bangladesh: Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka University, North South University, BRAC University, East West University, People's University of Bangladesh, Asian Institute of Management and Information Technology (AIMIT). 

Overseas: Stanford University (USA) Centre at Oxford University, and Washington International Studies Council (WISC)/Oxford Study Abroad Programme in Oxford, UK.

 

Courses taught:

Jahangirnagar University: Introduction to Prose, Romantic Poetry, Classical Literature, Twentieth-Century Literature, History of English Literature, Twentieth-Century British Fiction, Bengali Writings in English.

Introduction to Applied Linguistics & ELT, Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics, Approaches & Methods in ELT,  ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking Skills, ESL/EFL Reading and Writing Skills, ESL/EFL Materials Development, Critical Applied Linguistics. 

Dhaka University: Victorian Literature, Twentieth-Century English Novel, American Literature, Third World Literature in English, Second Language Acquisition, Introduction to Prose, Advanced Reading and Writing Strategies, Critical Appreciation, Rhetoric and Prosody, Foundation Course in English. 

North South University, BRAC University & AIMIT: Introduction to Composition, English Fundamentals & Composition, Academic English. 

East West University: From Chaucer to the Romantics, Victorian and Modern Poets, Shakespeare, Remedial English, Composition & Communication Skills.

People’s University of Bangladesh: Introduction to Poetry, Restoration Drama, English Prose and Poetry from the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Century.

Stanford University Centre at Oxford and WISC, Oxford, UK: Victorian Literature; Science, Religion, and Morality in Nineteenth-Century Literature; Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Bildungsroman; Twentieth-Century English Novel/Modern Fiction; Modern English and Irish Drama; Literature of the British Empire; Postcolonial Literature: Issues and Contexts; Anglo-Indian Fiction; Women Writing in India; The Influence of Islam on the Indian Subcontinent. 

 

Conferences and workshops:

Australia: Queensland University (Centre for Language Teaching & Research/CLTR, Department of English). 

Bangladesh: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, Bishwa Sahitya Kendra/World Literature Centre, British Council, Dhaka Literature Festival (Dhaka Lit Fest), Goethe Institute, Human Rights Summer School of ELCOP, Jana Itihas Charcha Kendra/Centre for Research in People’s History, Uttorsuri. 

ASA University, BRAC University, Central Women's University, Dhaka University, East West University, Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), Jahangirnagar University, North South University. 

India: Delhi University, Hyderabad (ACLALS), Jadavpur University, Women's History Conclave, Kolkata. 

Italy: Salerno University.

UK:  Cambridge University (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities/CRASS, Faculty of English, Pembroke College), Edinburgh University, London University (Goldsmiths College, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies/SOAS, University College London/UCL), Nottingham Trent University, Oxford University (All Soul's College, Bodleain Library,  Faculty of English, Humanities Division, Queen Elizabeth House (QEH), Wadham College), Warwick University, York University. 

Brady Arts & Community Centre, British Library, Kobi Nazrul Centre, London. 

USA: Columbia University and Pennsylvania State University (ACLA). 

 

Conference Committee Member: 

• Dispersed Trajectories: Feminism, Postcolonialism and the Road Ahead, English Faculty, University of Oxford. Keynote speaker: Professor Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University.
• Minority States: Violence, Nation-state and Multiculturalism: Wadham College, University of Oxford. Keynote Speaker: Professor Robert Young, University of Oxford/New York University. 
• Oxbridge Seminar Day, Faculty of English & Wadham College, University of Oxford.

 

Current/Past memberships of learned bodies:  American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS), Postcolonial Studies Association (PSA), UK, Postcolonial Studies Group at Oxford and Queensland universities, and Uttorsuri. 

RESEARCH INTEREST

History, culture, politics, and literature of colonial and postcolonial South Asia. 

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