Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Umasankar Patra

Assistant Professor

  • Modernisms
  • Indian Modernity
  • Indian Writing in English
  • Postcolonialism/Global Anglophone Literature
  • Life Narratives
  • Queer Studies
  • Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras, 2023
  • Assistant Professor, School of Engineering and Science, IIT Madras Zanzibar, 2023- 2024
  • Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, NIT Tiruchirappalli, 2020- 2023
  • Queer Autobibliography: Acts of Reading and Ways of Belonging, part of the series titled Routledge Auto/Biography Studies, Routledge, USA, 2026.
  • Inspectors of the Raj: A Pedagogy of Critical Conservatism in Odisha” (2023), South Asia, 46, no. 3, pp. 318-335.
    doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2023.2176596.
  • Queer Camera: Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin and Prater Violet” (2022), Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 69, No.3, pp. 565-585.
    doi:1080/00918369.2020.1840212.
  • Fakir Mohan Senapati’s Atmacharita: Episodic Autobiography, History, and Interiority” (2021), Biography, 44 no. 4, pp. 541-560.
    doi:10.1353/bio.2021.0049.
  • Telling Stories in ‘Queer Hell’: Christopher Isherwood’s Down There on a Visit” (2017), The Explicator, 75, no.1, pp. 37-39.
    doi: 10.1080/00144940.2016.1273190.
  • Translating an Indian Way of Thinking” (2017), Indian Literature, vol LX, no. 299, pp. 62-70.
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/26791383.
  • Gender, Precarity and Marginality in Higher Education Spaces in India” with Nupur Samuel (2023), In Leading Change in Gender and Diversity in Higher Education from Margins to Mainstream, edited by A. CohenMiller et al., Routledge.
  • “Eating with Eyes: The Food Economy of Jagannath Culture” (2019), In Bonding with the Lord: Uses of Jagannath in Community Formation and Popular Culture in and beyond Odisha, Jyotirmaya Tripathy and Uwe Skoda, Bloomsbury.
  • “Krushnachuda” by Surendra Mohanty, edited by Shaswat Panda and Jatindra K. Nayak (2025).
  • “Fakir Mohan Senapati’s Mamu: a Review” and “System of Patronage and Attribution of Authorship in Colonial Odisha: the Case of Gangadhar Meher” (2022), in Critical Discourse in Odia, Routledge.
  • “Post-Independence Odia Literary Criticism: Contexts, Trends and Consequences” and “Genesis of the Modern Odia Text Book” (2017), in Natabara Samantaray: A Reader, Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi.
  • “Samalochana” with Animesh Mohapatra (2016), in Modern Indian Writing in English Translation: A Multilingual Anthology, Worldview Publications, New Delhi.
  • “Manoj Das (1934-2021)”, Encyclopedia of Indian Writing in English, edited by Manju Jaidka, Routledge, 2024.
  • Chasing the Rainbow (2003), Encyclopedia of Indian Writing in English, edited by Manju Jaidka, Routledge, 2024.
  • NPTEL Course on “Indian Writing in English”
  • “Formalism and Cleanth Brooks”, e-PG Pathshala module as part of the “Literary Criticism and Theory” paper, MHRD-UGC Project, 2017. https://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/Home/ViewSubject?catid=9RA537jM1m7VD3VCoav4lQ==#

 

  • Reviewer, Oxford Bibliographies
  • Reviewer, Journal of Indian Knowledge Systems
  • Reviewer, Sāhitya, Journal of the Comparative Literature Association of India
  • Invited participant to the Global Indigeneities Workshop, The Center for Biographical Research, Hawaii, USA, 2026
  • Thomas W. Wilkins Fellowship, The Huntington Library, San Marino, USA, 2025-26
  • Best Performer Award for Teaching and Research, NIT, Tiruchirappalli, 2022
  • Bursary Grant from the Institute of English Studies, University of London, London, 2017
  • Christopher Isherwood Foundation Fellowship, The Huntington Library, San Marino, USA, 2015
  • UGC Junior Research Fellowship, 2013
IITM
  • Indian Writing in English
  • Postcolonial and New Writings
  • Literary Criticism
  • Introduction to Cultural Studies
IITM Zanzibar
  • Writing for Self
  • Writing Seminar
PhD
  • Amala Kavya B, Affect and Kinship in Contemporary South Asian Queer Representations (In Progress)
  • Medhavi Dhyani, Coming of Age in South Asian Literature (In Progress)
  • Akash Sajikumar (co-supervisor), Embodied and Material Practices of Queerness in India (In Progress)
MA
  • Aswathi Alappat, Corporeality and Spectrality (In Progress)
  • Joseph Kumar Guttula, Franchise Cricket, National Imaginary, and the Spectacle (In Progress)
  • Lakshmi K, Postcolonial Affect (Completed)
  • Oishi Banerjee, Queer Indian Childhood (Completed)
  • “Between Introversion and Influence: Language, Modernity, and Cultural Influence”, at the National Conference on “Bhartiya Bhasha Parivar: Towards an Integrative Framework of Language, Linguistics, and Literary Studies”, IIT Roorkee, Jan 2026.
  • “Notes on Modernity: Literature, Culture, History”, NIT Puducherry, Sept 2025.
  • “Writing the Biography of Odisha: Fakir Mohan Senapati’s Autobiography”, at the National Seminar on “Biography: Histories, Narratives, and Subjectivites” at DDU Keonjhar, Odisha, July 2025.
  • Invited Lecture at the national conference titled “Rooted Cosmopolitanism: Reflections on Literature, Culture and History”, Rama Devi Women’s University, Bhubaneswar, June 2025.
  • “Notes on Resistance”, Plenary session, Government Women’s College, Baripada, April, 2025.
  • “Everyday Jagannath: Negotiating the New Millenium”, at the workshop “Timeless Threads: Jagannath at Home and the World” at Odisha Research Center, Bhubaneswar, Feb 2025.
  • “Representation of Sacred Groves in Indian Writing in English”, Center of Sacred Groves, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, Feb 2025.
  • “‘The Queer Ephemeral: Archiving the Queer Subject in Isherwood’s Lost Years’, at the BAMS international conference titled “Ephemeral Modernism” at University of Leeds, England, June 2024.
  • Chaired a session titled “Sound, Rhythm and Music” at the BAMS international conference titled “Ephemeral Modernism” at University of Leeds, England, June 2024.
  • Title of the paper, “From Differential to Institutional: The Story of Mahima Dharma”, National Seminar organized by Indian Council of Philosophical Research titled “Mahimā Dharma and Darśana: Altruism Beyond Orthodoxy”, New Delhi, May, 2024.
  • “Teaching soft-skills in an International Classroom: Lessons learnt at IIT Madras Zanzibar”, at the FDP on “Life Skills-Soft Skills and Sustainability Footprints” at Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Feb 2024.
  • “What is Left of Theory?”, Keynote Address at Department of English, St. Thomas College, Pala, Kerala, Sept 2023.
  • “Hunger, Precarity, and Belonging: Reading Ananta Das’ Representation of Famine in Odisha” at the International conference on “The British Empire and Colonial Famines: History, Culture, Critique” at Indian Institute of Information Technology, Guwahati, January 2023.
  • “Framing Research Questions”, Resource Person at short-term course on “Critical Thinking and Academic Writing”, IIT Kharagpur, July 2022.
    “Writing Autobiography in India: Transformation of a Genre”, Resource Person at Faculty Development Program, Bharathidasan University, Tamil Nadu, May 2022.
  • Paper Titled “Jagannath’s New Avatar: Prasad Culture in Odisha”, National Conference titled “Contributions of Regional Literary Traditions to Indian Intellectual Systems”, Pondicherry University, March 2022.
  • “Telling the Tale the Indian Way: R.K Narayan’s Grandmother’s Tale”, Keynote Speaker at the National Conference titled “Writing English; Narrating India”, KKS Women’s College, Odisha, March 2022.
  • “Reading Relationally: Forging Solidarities and Affective Networks”, Speaker at series of Lectures titled Reading Matters, University of Hyderabad, Jan 2022.
  • “Introduction to Queer Studies”, Resource person at “Workshop on Research Methodology”, Department of English and Foreign Languages under the aegis of CRISEC, MDU, Rohtak, Haryana, Jan 2021.
  • “Queering Autobiography: Christopher Isherwood and his Lives”, Centre for Writing Studies, O.P Jindal Global University, Sonepat, Haryana, Nov 2020.
  • “After 1922: From Auden to Golding”, National Webinar Series on “Perspectives on History of English Literature”, Department of English, North Orissa University, Odisha, August 2020.
  • “Autobiographical Networks: A Critique of Symptomatic Reading”, Resource person at the online FDP on “Critical Theories and their Contemporary Trajectories in Humanities”, Department of English, Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh, May 2020.
  • “Modernism: What is Left of the World”, Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Feb 2020.
  • Moderator and Discussant at the Panel discussion titled “Spectrum: Alternate Sexualities & Literature”, Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Feb 2020.