Anshuman Mondal

Dr Mondal has been awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellowship in 2012-13 and will be on research leave.

Anshuman Mondal is a Reader in English, specialising in post-colonial studies. He joined Brunel in 2006 for the second time, having begun his career here in 2000 as a temporary Lecturer, before moving to a permanent post at the University of Leicester from 2002-6.

He is the author of Nationalism and Post-Colonial Identity: Culture and Ideology in India and Egypt (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), Amitav Ghosh (Manchester University Press, 2007), and Young British Muslim Voices, an account of his journey across the UK talking to young Muslims.

In 2004, Anshuman led an international project on 'Faith and Secularism' sponsored by Counterpoint, the cultural relations think-tank of the British Council, and wrote the Introduction to the pamphlet Faith and Secularism, part of the Birthday Counterpoint series, which was published by the British Council to mark its 70th anniversary. He has also published journalism in the leading current affairs magazine Prospect, and also The Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’. He also writes a current affairs blog called Human Zoo (http://anshumanmondal.wordpress.com/).

Anshuman is on the Open Executive of the Postcolonial Studies Association and Chair of its Conference Committee.

Research Overview

Anshuman has research interests in postcolonial literature and theory, nationalism, multiculturalism and the literature of diaspora. He has published essays on Indian literature in English, Gandhi, gender politics in Indian nationalism, modern Arabic narrative genres, modern Islam and fundamentalism, and the politics of the Middle East.

His recent research has focused on the representations of Muslims in contemporary society, and future research plans include a book on The Satanic Verses and other recent freedom of speech controversies involving Muslims; the ethics of reading and writing in a multicultural context; and a history of secularism.
Selected publications:
 

Teaching Activity

Anshuman teaches on several modules at undergraduate level: EN1013 Approaches to Poetry and Prose; EN1015 Thinking About Literature; EN2011 Postcolonial Writing; EN3019 Postcolonial Perspectives and EN3025 Writing India 1900-Present day. He also gives the occasional lecture on other modules.

At post-graduate level, he teaches on both the MA in Contemporary Literature and Culture (EN5513 Postcolonial Literature) and the new MA English Literature (on the core ‘Reading Cultures’ module and the ‘Writing Terror’ module).

He is willing to supervise research students in the following areas: Postcolonial Studies; Literary and Critical Theory; South Asian Literature in English; Black and Asian British Fiction; Multiculturalism and Diaspora studies; literature and anthropology.

Amitav Ghosh (Manchester University Press, 2007)

Nationalism and Post-Colonial Identity: Culture and Ideology in India and Egypt (Routledge Curzon, 2003)

Articles
‘Bad Faith: The Construction of Muslim Extremism in Ed Husain’s The Islamist’ in Rehana ahmed, Peter Morey and Amina Yaqin, eds. Culture, Diaspora and Modernity in Muslim Writing (Routledge, 2011 forthcoming)

‘Multiculturalism and Islam: some thoughts on a difficult relationship’ Moving Worlds: a journal of transcultural writing, 8:1, Spring 2008, 78-94

'The Ground Beneath Her Feet and Fury and the Re-Invention of Location' in Abdulrazak Gurnah, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Salman Rushdie (Cambridge University Press, 2007) 169-183

‘The Limits of Secularism and the Construction of Composite Nationhood in India’ in Peter Morey and Alex Tickell, eds., Alternative Indias: Cultural Diversity in Contemporary Indian Literature (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006) 1-24

'Allegories of Identity: "Postmodern" Anxiety and "Postcolonial" Ambivalence in Amitav Ghosh's In an Antique Land and The Shadow Lines,' Journal of Commonwealth Literature , 38:3, 2003, 19-36

'The Emblematics of Gender and Sexuality in Indian Nationalist Discourse' Modern Asian Studies , 36:4, 2002, 913-936

‘Gandhi, Utopianism and the Construction of Colonial Difference’ Interventions: an international journal of postcolonial studies, 3:3, 2001, 418-437

Publications

Journal Papers

(2008) Mondal, A., Multiculturalism and Islam: Some thoughts on a difficult relationship, Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings 8 (1) : 77- 94 Download publication

(2003) Mondal, A., Allegories of Identity: "Postmodern" Anxiety and "Postcolonial" Ambivalence in Amitav Ghosh's In an Antique Land and The Shadow Lines, Journal of Commonwealth Literature 38 (3) : 19- 36

(2002) Mondal, A., The emblematics of gender and sexuality in Indian nationalist discourse, Modern Asian Studies 36 (4) : 913- 936

Book Chapters

(2013) Mondal, A., Revisiting The Satanic Verses: the fatwa and its legacies. In: Eaglestone, R. and McQuillan, M. eds. Salman Rushdie: Contemporary Critical Perspectives. London : Continuum

(2012) Mondal, A., Bad Faith: The Construction of Muslim Extremism in Ed Husain's The Islamist. In: Ahmed, R., Morey, P. and Yaqin, A. eds. Culture, Diaspora and Modernity in Muslim Writing. London : Routledge 37- 51

(2007) Mondal, A., The ground beneath her feet and fury and the re-invention of location. In: Gurnah, A. ed. The Cambridge companion to Salman Rushdie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 169- 183

Books

(2008) Mondal, AA., Young British Muslim voices. Greenwood Press

(2007) Mondal, A., Amitav Ghosh. Manchester: Manchester University Press

(2003) Mondal, A., Nationalism and post-colonial identity: culture and ideology in India and Egypt. London: RoutledgeCurzon