Research Interest
Modernism
Modernity in India
Life Writing
Queer Studies
Translation

Office Location
Room No.:  HSB 340A
E-mail : umasankar[at]iitm[.]ac[.]in

• Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras, 2023
• Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, NIT Tiruchirappalli, 2020- 2023
• Assistant Professor, School of Undergraduate Studies, Dr B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi, New Delhi, 2018- 2020
• Assistant Professor, Department of English, Zakir Husain Delhi College, University of Delhi, 2018
• Assistant Professor, Department of English, Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi, 2017-2018

• “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.

• “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.

• “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, Sāhitya, Journal of the Comparative Literature Association of India

• 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

• “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.