Sandeep Banerjee
Space, nature, and the environment; aesthetics and modernity; imperialism and decolonization; cultural politics of the Cold War; literary and social theory.
I am a scholar of Global Anglophone and World literature with a focus on the literary and cultural worlds of colonial and postcolonial South Asia. I also have scholarly expertise in British literature and culture of the long nineteenth century, and literary and social theory. I work with English, Bengali, and Hindi texts as well as photographs and films to understand human conceptions of space and nature, and how human culture and the natural environment shape one another. I also investigate the relationship between modernity and aesthetics in South Asia, especially in the contexts of imperialism, decolonization, the movements of global capitalism, and the Cold War.
I am the author of (Routledge, 2019; pbk. 2020). It conceives of decolonization as a utopian spatial desire and underscores the centrality of space and representation in prefigurations of the postcolony. I am a co-editor of the anthology of essays Partition, Belonging and the Birth of Bangladesh (Routledge, forthcoming). My articles have appeared in journals such as Comparative Literature Studies, Modern Fiction Studies, Victorian Literature and Culture, Modern Asian Studies, and Utopian Studies besides anthologies such as the Cambridge Companion to British Literature and Empire and Space and Literary Studies. I am one of the series editors of the , and serve on the editorial boards of the journals , and .
I am currently completing my second monograph, Heights of Fantasy: Imagining the Himalaya in the 颁辞濒辞苍颈补濒听Capitalocene that examines changes in the cultural conceptions in the mountains between 1770 and 1950. Conceiving of this transformation as a contested process of placemaking in which both the British and Indians engaged in, the study illuminates a key moment in the colonial production of space and nature in the capitalocene. I am also translating a Bengali novel into English besides developing a project that will examine the impact of the cold war on literary and cultural texts as well as theory from South Asia.
Ph.D. (Syracuse University, USA)
M. Phil., (University of Oxford, UK)
M.A. (Jadavpur University, India)
B.A. Honours (Jadavpur University, India)
Books
. (Routledge, 2019; Pbk, 2021)
Edited Volumes
Partition, Belonging and the Birth of Bangladesh (co-edited with Subho Basu). Routledge. Forthcoming.
Editor, 鈥淥f Deaths, Disease, and Empire: A Forum on Mike Davis鈥檚听Late-Victorian Holocausts.鈥澨�4 no. 1 (2025): 17-49.
Articles and Book Chapters
Refereed Journal Articles
鈥淩e/Turning to Tagore in Our Times: Considerations on a Resource of Hope.鈥� positions: asia critique. Forthcoming, 2026.
鈥淧olitics and Aesthetics in the Realm of Hunger.鈥� In 鈥淥f Deaths, Disease, and Empire: A Forum on Mike Davis鈥檚 Late-Victorian Holocausts.鈥� 4, no. 1 (2025): 19-26.
鈥淚ntroduction鈥� to 鈥淥f Deaths, Disease, and Empire: A Forum on Mike Davis鈥檚 Late-Victorian Holocausts.鈥� 4, no. 1 (2025): 17-18.
鈥淔orms of Translation, Translation of Forms: From Maxim Gorky鈥檚 Mother to Mahasweta Devi鈥檚听Mother of 1084.鈥� 61, no. 2 (2024): 306-34.
鈥淲orld Literature, the Text, and the Critic: Re-reading The Country and the City, Re-situating Raymond Williams.鈥� 20 (2022): 19-39.
鈥淐ognitive Maps of the Semi-Periphery: Two Bengali Novels and the Transition to Colonial Capitalist Modernity.鈥� 68, no. 1 (2022): 43-63.
鈥淕estures of Refusal: Utopian Longings in Satyajit Ray鈥檚 Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne.鈥� 听30, no. 3 (2022): 257-73.
鈥淏eyond the Intimations of Mortality: Chakrabarty, Anthropocene, and the Politics of the Im/Possible.鈥� 30, no 2. (2017): 1-14.
鈥溾�榃hy, This is (Not Quite) London!鈥�: The Spectre of Kipling in Contemporary Kolkata.鈥� 听 3 (2015): 1-21.
鈥淪ecularising the Sacred, Imagining the Nation-Space: The Himalaya in Bengali Travelogues, 1856-1901.鈥� 49, no. 3 (2015): 609-49. (With Subho Basu).
鈥溾�楴ot altogether Unpicturesque鈥�: Samuel Bourne and the Landscaping of the Victorian Himalaya.鈥澨� 42 (2014): 351-68.
Refereed Book Chapters
鈥淭he Imperial Romance: Colonialism in Ritual Form.鈥� In Cambridge Companion to British Literature and Empire, ed. Auritro Majumder, 174-86. , 2025.
鈥淓mpire, Nation, and the Question of Space.鈥� In Space and Literary Studies, ed. Elizabeth Evans, 140-55. , 2025. (Co-authored with Atreyee Majumder).
鈥淭he City as Nation: Delhi as the Indian Nation in Bengali bhadralok travelogues 1866-1910.鈥� In听Cities in South Asia, eds. Crispin Bates and Minoru Mio, 125-42. , 2015. (Co-authored with Subho Basu).
鈥淎 Brief History of South Asia.鈥� In South Asia in the World: An Introduction, ed. Susan S. Wadley, 22-65. , 2015. (Co-authored with Subho Basu et al).
鈥淩aymond Williams: Materialist Approach to Culture, Literature, Media and Politics.鈥� In Modern Social Thinkers, ed. Pradip Basu, 319-36. , 2012.
Refereed Reference Essays
鈥淯topia and South Asian Postcolonial Fiction.鈥� In Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Literature, ed. Deidre Lynch. , 2025.
鈥淏ritish Colonialism and Imperialism.鈥� In Oxford Bibliographies: Hinduism, ed. Tracy Coleman.听, 2023. Introduction, notes, and 115 annotated entries. 11,149 words. (Co-authored with Atreyee Majumder).
Translations
鈥溾�榃hether Flowers Bloom or Not鈥�: Selections from Bengali Poetry.鈥� : A Journal of South Asian Studies 3 (2018): 41-45.
Public Scholarship and听Reviews
Public Engagements
Panelist, 鈥淐BC Ideas: How this 19th-century Indian feminist flipped the colonial travelogue on its head.鈥� Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada. : 10 September 2025.
Invited Public Lecture: 鈥淪inging in Dark Times.鈥� Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Crow鈥檚听Theater, Toronto, Canada. 7 January 2024. on CBC Ideas: 22 February 2024.
Panelist, 鈥淐BC Ideas: Muhammad Iqbal 鈥� One of the Greatest South Asian Thinkers of the 20th听Century,鈥� Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada. : 25 January 2023.
Panelist, 鈥淐BC Ideas: The Year 1913 鈥� The World on the Brink,鈥� Canadian Broadcasting听Corporation, Stratford, Canada. 24 July 2022. : 3 November 2022.
Conversation with Prof. Sumathi Ramaswamy, Professor of History, Duke University. Bangalore听International Center, Bangalore, India. 16 October 2020. On Zoom.
Public Scholarship
鈥溹Ω唰嵿Μ唳唳� 唳灌Σ唰囙 唳膏Δ唰嵿Ο唳�: 唳呧Ω唳唳Μ唰囙Π 唳班唳溹Θ唰�唳む 唳唳班Ω唳權唳椸鈥� [鈥淎 Truthful Dream: On the Politics of the Impossible鈥漖. 听 27 (2022): 64-72. In Bengali.
鈥淭o Dream, Perchance to Change.鈥� . Issue 61 (2022).
鈥淯topianism and its Discontents.鈥� Marx, Asia, and the history of the present. . Issue 3听(2020).
鈥淓piphany and Exasperation: The National Library.鈥� In Kolkata, Book City: Readings, Fragments, Images, eds. Jennie Renton and Sria Chatterjee, 163-72. , 2009.
Book Reviews & Roundtables
Review of States of Disconnect: The China-India Literary Relation in the Twentieth Century by Adhira Mangalagiri. Columbia UP, 2023. Comparative Literature Studies 61, no. 4 (2024): 709-11.
鈥淩equiem for a Dream.鈥� Forum on Insurgent Imaginations: World Literature and the Periphery听by Auritro Majumder. Cambridge UP, 2020. Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary听Inquiry 9, no. 3 (2022): 399-404.
鈥淎 Saga of Conceptual Difficulties.鈥� Review of Similarity: A Paradigm for Culture Theory, eds. Anil听Bhatti and Dorothee Kimmich. Tulika Books, 2018. Economic and Political Weekly. Vol. LVI, nos. 45 & 46 (2021): 34-36.
Review of Forget English! Orientalisms and World Literatures by Aamir Mufti. Harvard UP, 2018.听Ariel 51, no. 1 (2020): 170-73.
鈥淎natomy of a Criticism: Considerations on a 鈥楳ore than Global鈥� Reading Strategy.鈥� In 鈥淢ore than Global?鈥�: A Roundtable Discussion on Thinking Literature Across Continents by Ranjan Ghosh and J. Hillis Miller. Duke UP, 2016. New Global Studies 13, no.1 (2019): 131-36.
Review of Daniel E. White, From Little London to Little Bengal: Religion, Print & Modernity in Early British India 1793-1835. Johns Hopkins UP, 2013. University of Toronto Quarterly 84, no.听3 (2015): 214-16.
Major Grants听
- Insight Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada (2019-24).听听听
- Research Grant, Gerda Henkel Stiftung, Germany (2018-20; Co-PI)听
- 脡tablissement de nouveaux professeurs-chercheurs Grant, Fonds de recherche du Qu茅bec (2015-18).听听
Awards听
- Louis Dudek Award for Excellence in Teaching. Department of English Student Association, 黑料社, 2017.听
Fellowships听听
- Faculty Fellowship. Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas, 黑料社 (2016-18).听听
- Dissertation Fellowship. Humanities Centre, Syracuse University, USA (2012-13). 听
- University Fellowship. Syracuse University, USA (2011-12; 2007-08).听
- British Chevening/ Radhakrishnan Oxford Scholarship (2000-02).
I supervise projects related to my areas of interest.
Syracuse University