Advisory Board 2023
Prof. John Stauffer
Prof. John Stauffer is a leading authority on antislavery, the Civil War era, social protest movements and photography. He is a Harvard University Professor of English and American Literature, American Studies and African American Studies. His books include The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race (2002), Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (2008), and The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song That Marches On (2013). Two of his books were national bestsellers and several have won numerous awards. He is currently working on a biography of Charles Sumner. He is the author of more than 50 academic articles and his essays have also appeared in Time, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New Republic, and the Washington Post, among other places. He is the editor of 21st Editions, has served as a consultant for the traveling exhibition War/Photography, and has co-curated an exhibition on Douglass and Melville at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. He has also advised three award-winning documentaries, and has been a consultant for feature films including Django Unchained (2012) and the Free State of Jones (2016). He has held the Ruth Garvey Cochener Fink Visiting Professorship in Leadership at Washburn University, a Massachusetts Historical Society Fellowship and a Gilder Lehrman Institute Fellowship, served as a Bancroft Prize Juror, and received Purdue University’s Distinguished Alumni Award. He has appeared on national radio and television and has lectured widely throughout the United States, Asia and Europe. He received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1999 and won the Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize for the best dissertation in American Studies. He began teaching at Harvard that year and was tenured in 2004. He teaches courses on protest literature, Emancipation, southern literature, Douglass and Lincoln, the Civil War, autobiography, the nineteenth-century novel and historical fiction. In 2009, Harvard named him the Walter Channing Cabot Fellow for “achievements and scholarly eminence in the fields of literature, history or art.” He has received two teaching awards from Harvard: the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award and the Jan Thaddeus Teaching Prize. He served as Chair of American Studies at Harvard from 2006-2012.
Prof. Bryan Reynolds
Prof. Bryan Reynolds is a playwright, director, performer, and cofounder and Artistic Director of the Amsterdam-based Transversal Theatre Company, which has produced a number of his plays in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, including: Unbuckled; Woof, Daddy; Railroad; Blue Shade; Lumping in Fargo; Eve's Rapture; The Green Knight; Nabi Saleh; Fractalicious!; and No Erasure. He is an alumnus of Harvard University where he completed his Master’s and Doctoral degree. Reynolds’ research spans several disciplines, including critical theory, history, performance studies, social semiotics, philosophy, cognitive neuroscience, dramatic literature, and African and Middle Eastern studies. It focuses on the experience, articulation, and performance of consciousness, subjectivity, affects, and sociocultural formations, particularly the ideologies, politics, passions, and geographies that define them, both on and off the stage. As author, his publications include Intermedial Theatre: Performance Philosophy, Transversal Poetics, and the Future of Affect (2017); Transversal Subjects: From Montaigne to Deleuze after Derrida (2009); Transversal Enterprises in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries: Fugitive Explorations (2006); Performing Transversally: Reimagining Shakespeare and the Critical Future (2003); Becoming Criminal: Transversal Performance and Cultural Dissidence in Early Modern England (2002); and as editor or co-editor, Performance Studies: Key Words, Concepts, and Theories (2015); among many others. Currently, he is working on his upcoming book Reimagining Worlds: Toward a Performance Philosophy of Extreme Sports from Skiing to Skateboarding. Other publications by Reynolds can be found on Academia.edu.
Dr. Sanjay Verma
Dr. Sanjay Verma is a journalist, media personality, academician, editor and a prolific writer currently working as Assistant Professor at Department of English, Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. He completed his Ph.D. from the Department of English, APS University, Rewa, M. P. on the topic: “Portrayal of Crime in Journalistic writings and Indo-Anglian Literature with special reference to Mala Sen & Shobha De”. As an academician he has also been a research advisor for Ph.D. scholars at the Department of MIL & LS, DU. His areas of interest and specialisation includes Media Studies, Crime Fiction, Journalistic writings, Media and Communication Skills, British Literature, American Literature, Indian English Literature and Partition Literature. He has taught wide ranging topics in British literature at the University level ranging from 14th to 20th century British literature. He has been responsible for various administrative duties in his college and has been a convenor of various societies and committees. He has been a Member of Magazine Committee of Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi (2015-2019). He has a rich experience of organising various national seminars and webinars. He has also presented papers and delivered lectures as a resource person in various national and international seminars and conferences. As an editor he has also served The Ad Litteram Journal in the capacity of Co-Editor and has been responsible in editing various editions at The Journal. He has a long list of research paper publication in various journals, including UGC Approved Journals and several other peer-reviewed journals. He actively writes in both Hindi & English and has published in both the languages. In 2015-16 he was the Principal Investigator of an Innovation Project with the sanctioned amount of Rs. 3 lakhs on ‘Role of Films in Educating Students: An Innovative Study of Colleges of University of Delhi’. The project was granted by University of Delhi to Dr. Verma. He has also edited various books and contributed chapters in various books published under renowned publication houses. He also contributes journalistic pieces and articles in various literary and political magazines and has also undertaken interviews for the magazines.
Prof. Sharankumar Limbale
Prof. Sharankumar Limbale is an author of Marathi language, poet and literary critic. Born on June 1, 1956 in Maharashtra’s Solapur district, Limbale obtained his master’s degree in Marathi literature and did his Ph.D. in the comparative study of Marathi Dalit literature and American Black literature from Shivaji University, Kolhapur. He joined as an assistant editor in the Department of publication in the Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University, Nashik, from where he retired as a Professor and Director. Limbale has authored forty books of novel, poetry, stories and criticism. He has also written critical essays and papers for many seminars. He is best known for his autobiography Akkarmashi which is translated in several other Indian languages and in English. The English translation is published by the Oxford University Press with the title The Outcaste. His critical work Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature (2004) is considered amongst the most important works on Dalit literature. His novel “Sanatan is the story of socio-cultural struggles of untouchables. The work was selected by a committee of scholars and writers headed by former secretary general of the Lok Sabha, Subhash C Kashyap. He was honoured with the Saraswati Samman which is given every year to an outstanding literary work written in any Indian language mentioned in Schedule VIII to the Constitution by an Indian citizen published during the ten years preceding the specified year. Besides the this honour, he has also been awarded with the Vyas Samman (for Hindi works by Indian citizens) and Bihari Puraskar (for Hindi/Rajasthani works by Rajasthani writers) by the KK Birla Foundation.
Rob Harle
Robert Maddox-Harle (aka Rob Harle) is an artist, poet and reviewer. His work is published in leading journals and anthologies. He has written several online reviews, books and has three volumes of his own poetry published by the names Scratches & Deeper Wounds (1996) – Mechanisms of Desire (2012) and Winds of Infinity (2016). He was recently honoured with the Lifetime Literary Achievement Award 2021 (GIEWEC). He is currently a member of the Leonardo Review Panel and Member of the Editorial Board of numerous International literature journals. He is the Australian–NZ editor for Setu Journal. His Artwork, Publications, Reviews and selected writings can be accessed from his website: https://www.maddoxharle.com
Prof. Abhay Maurya
Prof. Abhay Maurya is the founder Vice-Chancellor of The English and Foreign Languages University, Director Mansrovar International School, Garhi, Distt. Kaithal. He became a Professor of Russian Literature at Delhi University and subsequently the founder head of its Slavic Studies Department. He was awarded his Ph.D. in Russian Literature by Moscow State University. He served as the Dean, Faculty of Applied Social Sciences and Humanities twice and the Chairman of the Board of Research Studies (Humanities and Social Sciences) thrice. He also was the Provost of Jubilee Hall and P. G. Men’s Hostel and the Chairman of Sports Council of the University of Delhi. Prof. Maurya is the author of fifteen books, both scholarly and creative, and more than fifty research papers published in India and abroad. Among them Confluence – Historico- Literary Comparative Studies (1988) and India and World Literature (ed., 1990), have won a wide acclaim. A very significant work of his titled “Russian- English-Hindi Dictionary” was published in 2007. Prof. Maurya’s “Parable English-Hindi Dictionary”, published in 2017, has been hailed as the biggest (1900 pages) and the best English-Hindi Dictionary of India today by numerous critics. Prof. Maurya was awarded the “A. S. Pushkin” Medal, the highest honour in the field of Russian literature and language, by International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature (UNESCO status) in 1986. Prof. Maurya was awarded “Haryana Gaurav Samman” by Haryana Sahitya Academi, 2009 for the year 2007-2008 and “Safdar Hashmi Samman” in 2009 for the year 2006.
Prof. Nandini Sahu
Prof. Nandini Sahu, Amazon’s best-selling author 2022, Professor of English and Former Director, School of Foreign Languages, IGNOU, New Delhi, India, is an established Indian English poet, creative writer and folklorist. She is the author/editor of seventeen books. She is the recipient of the Literary Award/Gold Medal from the Hon’ble Vice President of India for her contribution to English Studies. Her areas of research interest cover New Literatures, Critical Theory, Folklore and Culture Studies, Children’s Literature and American Literature.
Dr. Bhim Singh Dahiya
Dr. Bhim Singh Dahiya (M.A. in English and Ph.D. from University of Cincinnati, USA) is a renowned educationist and former Vice-chancellor of Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra (1993-1996). He has also served as the Pro-Vice Chancellor, Kurukshetra University, and member of the Governing body, United States Education Foundation in India, and Registrar, M.D. University, Rohtak. In addition, he has also served as Professor of English, Kurukshetra University and M.D. University, Rohtak. He did his Ph.D. on Hemingway, and taught in the University of Cincinnati, USA in the early 1970’s. His highly acclaimed books include: A New History of English Literature (Doaba, 2005), The Hero in Hemingway (Bahri, 1978), Love, Sex and Marriage in Shakespeare (Viva, 2007), Shakespeare’s Intellectual Background (Viva, 2008), The University Autonomy in India (Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, 2001), Power Politics in Haryana (Gyan Publishing House (2008), Higher Education in Haryana (Shanti Prakashan, 2009), and Shakespeare: A Biography (Primus Books, 2009).
Dr. Mujeeb Ahmad Khan
Dr. Mujeeb Ahmad Khan is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Urdu, Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi, Delhi. He has been the alumnus of this college itself. He did his Ph.D. from the Department of Urdu, University of Delhi. He is a prolific writer who has written sixteen books till date. He has served as the literary assistant of the world famous Urdu fiction writer Qurratulain Hyder. He edited almost twelve books of her. She has also been kind enough to refer to his name in her books. Not only this, she appreciated his books in the form of comments on their back covers; she also wrote Preface of his book. He is very popular among his students as well as colleagues for his humble nature and docile disposition.
Prof. K. V. Dominic
Prof. K. V. Dominic is a poet, critic, short story writer and editor and has authored/edited forty two books including thirteen collections of poems—seven in English and one each in Hindi, Bengali, French, Tamil, Gujarati and Malayalam. His poetry has been published as a collection of five critical volumes. He is the Secretary of Guild of Indian English Writers, Editors and Critics (GIEWEC), and Chief Editor of two International refereed biannual research journals, Writers Editors Critics (WEC) and International Journal on Multicultural Literature (IJML). He is a regular participant of SAARC and Sufi Literature festivals at Delhi and Jaipur. He is a former Associate Professor of the P.G. and Research Department of English, Newman College, Thodupuzha, Kerala, India. His poetry has served as primary text for many doctoral researches. International Poets Academy, Chennai conferred on him the LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD “in recognition of his distinguished contribution to World Poetry, and for his pioneering pursuits in influencing mankind towards the path of World Peace, Global Harmony and Cosmic Humanism” on 9 th July 2009 at the World Poetry Day Celebration at World Peace Centre, Chemmencherry, Chennai. He was awarded the Kafla Inter- continental Award of Honour SAHITYA SHIROMANI in recognition of his contribution in the field of literature at the 10 th International Writers’ Festival at Trivandrum (Kerala) on 28 th December 2014 by India Inter-Continental Cultural Association, Chandigarh. International Sufi Centre, Bangalore conferred a citation of Brightest Honour in recognition of his distinguished contribution to Indian English Poetry and for his pursuits in influencing mankind towards Communal Harmony and Cosmic Humanism, on 1 st September 2020.
Prof. Munir
Prof. Munir is a Professor and Head in the Department of English at Shibli National College, Azamgarh State University, Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India. He obtained his Ph.D. Degree from the esteemed Banaras Hindu University in 1989. His special areas of interest are modernism, postmodernism, feminism, and literary theory. He has been a visiting Associate from 2002 to 2006 at Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla. He has eight times been awarded fellowship grant by the American Studies Research Centre, Hyderabad. He has also been conferred OUCIP Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 2010 by Osmania University Centre for International Programme, Hyderabad. He has also been awarded scholarship by Yeats International Society, Sligo, Ireland. He has completed two projects – “Modernism in Hindi Poetry” and “South Asian American Fiction: Emergence of a New Genre” awarded by the University Grant Commission, New Delhi. Recently, he has been awarded scholarship by Eliot International Society, University of London, England. His major published books are: Horizon of Faith: Humanist Vision in the Plays of Elmer Rice, An Autopsy on English Literature, Modernism and After, The New Criticism, Rainbowing, and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (getting ready for publication). He has also published scores of research papers in National and International journals. He has visited abroad many times for academic purposes.
Prof. Raj Kumar
Prof. Raj Kumar is Professor in the Department of English, Delhi University. His research areas include autobiographical studies, Dalit literature, Indian writing in English, Odia literature and post-colonial studies. He has been a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla in 1999 and has published in journals such as Social Action, Sateertha Bulletin, The Fourth World, Creative Forum, Language Forum, Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature, Indian Literature, Social Scientist, Journal of the School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, International Journal of Communication, Rama Devi Women University Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage, Ravenshaw Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, and Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics. Raj Kumar has also translated literary texts from Indian languages, especially Odia into English. His book, Dalit Personal Narratives: Reading Caste, Nation and Identity has been published by Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi in 2010 and got reprinted in 2011, 2015 and 2017. His English translation of Akhila Naik’s Bheda, the first Odia Dalit novel is published by Oxford University Press, Delhi in 2017. His book Dalit Literature and Criticism is published by Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi in 2019.
Prof. Ashok K Mohapatra
Prof. Ashok K Mohapatra is a Senior Professor at Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar. He was Professor at Sambalpur University for long years. He was Fulbright alumnus of Columbia and Yale universities. He has been credited with many books and essays published at the national and international levels. His latest publications are an edited book on American novels by Macmillan, 2020, and an essay on Holocaust poetry in the Journal of Literature and Trauma Studies, University of Nebraska Press, 2021. He has been the guest editor of The Global South for Indiana University Press, and edited Sambalpur Journal of Literatures and Cultures until his retirement from there in 2021. Professor Mohapatra was a visiting Professor to the University of Delhi in 2019, Bardhaman University in 2018, and Jadavpur University in 2010. He is on the editorial board of Dibrugarh Journal of English Studies and English Forum, Guwahati University.
Prof. Himanshu Shekhar Mohapatra
Prof. Himanshu Shekhar Mohapatra has been a Lecturer in English from 1980 to 81 at Ispat College, Rourkela; from 1981 to 82 at Government College, Bhawanipatna; from 1985 to 88 as Commonwealth Scholar at the School of English and American Studies, University of East Anglia, U.K.; from 1982 to 88 Lecturer in English at Berhampur University; in 1988 a Senior Lecturer in English, Berhampur University; in 1993 a Reader in English, Berhampur University; in 1994 a Reader in English, Utkal University; in 1996 a Visiting Senior Member, Linacre College, University of Oxford, UK; in 1997 a UGC Visiting Fellow at the English Department, Jadavpur University; in 2000 a Fulbright Professor at the Summer Institute in the University of Louisville, Kentucky, USA. In lifestyle, he states that his lifestyle mainly refers to the way of speaking English and how well you carry yourself. In general, lifestyle is the way of living, dressing up, eating food etc. but in his story the emphasis has only been on the communication aspect. Prof. Mohapatra was an Anglo-American Critical theorist (C19th & C20th), specialized in British & American Fiction, Fiction Theory, Comparative Literature, Translation, Postcolonial Literatures, Communication Skills and Professional Writings.
Dr. Meenakshi Pawha
Dr. Meenakshi Pawha is a Professor at the Department of English and Modern European Languages, University of Lucknow. Her research interests include Folk and Contemporary Drama and theatre, Postcolonial Studies, Film Studies, Translation Studies, Climate Change and ELT. She was a Fulbright Scholar at the New York University, Mellon Fellow at Harvard University, and Charles Wallace India Trust Fellow at Cambridge.
Prof. Surya Kant Mishra
Prof. Surya Kant Mishra has completed forty years of teaching at the University of Delhi with postgraduate teaching at IGNOU, having successfully guided eight M.Phil. dissertations and two doctoral research theses. He has published more than fifty research papers in peer- reviewed journals including Ruminations, Glimpses, etc. His range of articles is from Bankim Chandra to Comparative Poetics. Besides having an illustrious academic career, he has also held several administrative positions including DUTA Executive (Member), Member of International Roma Cultural University (Belgrade), and President, Staff Association Satyawati College. He has presented numerous papers at the National and International seminars/conferences and also worked as a resource person in the staff development programme. He has been a member of the P.G. committee of courses at the University of Delhi (2013-14) and a member of the Committee of Courses, Department of English, University of Delhi. He is the author of a book titled The Eternal Triangle: Self, Life and Meaning in the Novels of Arun Joshi (2016). He has visited Amity University and Sharda University for course designing, supervising and other research activities.
Prof. Himadri Lahiri
Himadri Lahiri is former Professor of English, University of Burdwan, West Bengal. Currently, he is Professor of English at the School of Humanities, Netaji Subhas Open University, Kolkata, India. Asia Travels: Pan-Asian Cultural Discourses and Diasporic Asian Literature/s in English (Birutjatiyo Sahitya Sammiloni, 2021) and Diaspora Theory and Transnationalism (Orient Blackswan, 2019) are his latest books. He writes book reviews for academic journals and newspapers. He also writes poems, occasionally. He was on the jury of Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation (Bengali) 2020.
Dr. Kumar Vimlendu Singh
Dr. Kumar Vimlendu Singh is a noted name in academic and literary world of present times. He has conducted more than 1000 workshops across India for teachers and students. His reputation as a film critic has measured new heights in the recent years. Awards like “OIL Rajbhasha Sammaan” and “Magadh Sahitya Shree” add exclusive laurels to his versatile personality. He has worked as one of the jury members in many National and International Film festivals. He is a noted poet and his writings in Hindi, English and Urdu have been appreciated across the globe. He is the only person in the literary domain of the present times to have bestsellers in both the languages (English & Hindi) to his credit. A Ph.D. in English and a BHU alumnus with a long experience of teaching and editing at various reputed platforms or institutions like LPU, Amity University, Cambridge University Press, Ratna Sagar and the like, he is blessed with talents of acting, singing, anchoring etc. He is a visionary the world might know clearly in near future. His books as displayed on the website in “Recommend to Your Library” section are the monumental works for the ignited minds; they have the ability to fuel the inner arithmetic towards a zone which is not commonly experienced. He is another name for zeal, zest and zing.