Master's Specialization: American Literature

PhD: [American Drama] Stasis in the Plays of Edward Albee: Problems of Interpretation and the Indian Pedagogical Context.

AREAS OF INTEREST:

• Theatre & Performance Studies
• Poetry
• American Literature
• Indian Writing in English
• Film & Media Studies
• Gender Studies

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8429-6288

Smuts  Visiting Research Fellowship in Commonwealth Studies, University of Cambridge, UK. (2023-24) 

Fulbright Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship, The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York (2015-16).

Segal Fellow at The Graduate Center, CUNY (2015).

Visiting Fellowship at Assam University, Silchar (2017).

Visiting Fellowship at NEHU, Shillong (2018).

UGC-JRF 1993

GU Academic Gold Medal (Masters in English - 1992)

Shakespeare Prize (1992)

Books: 

Mahesh Dattani: An Introduction. New Delhi: Foundation Books (Unit of Cambridge University Press), 2005. ISBN 2250-0721.

Ideas of the Stage: Selections from Drama Theory. Ed. Guwahati, GUPD, 2010. ISBN 81-84616-71-4.

Journal Articles / Chapters in Books:

Chaudhuri, Asha Kuthari. “Theatre across Borders. By Abhishek Majumdar. London: Bloomsbury, 2023. Pp. Viii + 211. £22.99 Pb; £20.69 Ebook. - Collected Plays: Dweepa; Pah-La; Djinns of Eidgah; Muktidham; 9 Kinds of Silence. By Abhishek Majumdar. London: Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury, 2024. Pp. 275. £24.99 Pb; £22.49 Ebook.” Theatre Research International 50.1 (2025): 97–98. Web. DOI:10.1017/S0307883324000440. Indexed in Scopus.

"Then and Now: Nation and Transnational Identity in Jyoti Prasad Agarwala's Joymati (1935) and Jahnu Barua's Ajeyo (2014)" in Parichay Patra, Amitendu Bhattacharya (ed.) Frontiers of south Asian Culture: Nation, Trans-Nation and Beyond. 14 September 2023. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003428572-4. Indexed in Scopus.

"Traversing Diverse Terrains: Interview with Abhishek Majumdar" Critical Stages/Scenes Critique The IATC Journal, June 2023. Issue 27. Special issue on Renegotiating the Canon: Scenes of German/ic Theatre(s). e-ISSN: 2409-7411. Indexed in Scopus.

"Hanging in There: Theatre under the Sal Trees" in CriticalStages/Scenes Critique The IATC Journal, December 2022. Issue 26. Special Issue on Theatre and Ecology. e-ISSN: 2409-7411. Indexed in Scopus.

"Of Memories and Mothers" in The Oldest Love Story: A Motherhood Antholgy. Edited by Rinki Roy Bhattacharya and Maithili Rao. 2022. New Delhi: Om Books International.

“Re-Articulating Desire, Re-Claiming Identity: Mahesh Dattani’s Representation of the Third Gender” in Juan Ignacio Oliva-Cruz, Antonia Navarro and Jorge Diego Sánchez (Eds), Revolving Around India(s): Alternative Images, Emerging Perspectives 2020. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN10: 1-5275-4524-5. Print.

“Food for Thought: Aahar”. In N. Pathak & D. Sarma (eds), Reimagining Life in/through Literature: Essays and Reviews on Arun Sarma’s Works 2018. Guwahati: Asom Sahitya Sammilani. ISBN 978-81-930616-7-1. Print.

“Fractured Worlds: Purush” In N. Pathak & D. Sarma (eds), Reimagining Life in/through Literature: Essays and Reviews on Arun Sarma’s Works 2018. Guwahati: Asom Sahitya Sammilani. ISBN 978-81-930616-7-1. Print.

“Of Men, Women, Money and More: Arun Sarma’s Mricchakatikaam” In N. Pathak & D. Sarma (eds), Reimagining Life in/through Literature: Essays and Reviews on Arun Sarma’s Works 2018. Guwahati: Asom Sahitya Sammilani. ISBN 978-81-930616-7-1. Print.

“Love in the Time of War: Arun Sarma’s Napoleon” In N. Pathak & D. Sarma (eds), Reimagining Life in/through Literature: Essays and Reviews on Arun Sarma’s Works 2018. Guwahati: Asom Sahitya Sammilani.ISBN 978-81-930616-7-1. Print.

“Straddling the Ancient and the Modern: Two Performances dedicated to Arun Sarma” In N. Pathak & D. Sarma (eds), Reimagining Life in/through Literature: Essays and Reviews on Arun Sarma’s Works 2018. Guwahati: Asom Sahitya Sammilani. ISBN 978-81-930616-7-1. Print.

“Media Representing Women - Women in the Media Exploring Possibilities of Community” in Nandana Dutta, (ed) Communities of Women in Assam: Being, Doing and Thinking Together. 2015. New Delhi: Routledge.ISBN-10: 1138100463. Print.

"Old Text, New Theory: Reading Tagore’s Red Oleanders through Eco-feminist Lenses” in A. Bhattacharya et al Ed. The Politics and Reception of Rabindranath Tagore's Drama: The Bard on the Stage. 2015. (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies) London & New York: Routledge. ISBN-10: 1138804622. Print.

“Assam Repertory Theatre / Asom Rangamandal” in Williams, Simon. (ed) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Stage Actors and Acting. (NY: CUP, 2015) ISBN: 9780521769549. Print.

“Renaissance Theatre and The Jew of Malta”, in Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, ed. Nandana Dutta (Guwahati: Kitab Bhawan, 2013). Print.

“The Critical Stage: The Role of Secular Alternative Theatre in Pakistan by Fawzia Afzal-Khan”. Book Review in Margins: a journal of literature and culture Vol. II, 2012 (Peer-reviewed International Journal) ISSN 2250-0721

“Is a ‘Poetics’ of Indian Drama in English possible? The Case of Mahesh Dattani” English Forum: Journal of the Department of English, Gauhati University. Vol. 3. March 2012. ISSN 2279-0446

“Visualizing the Invisible: Dattani’s Seven Steps around the Fire” in Plays of Mahesh Dattani  (ed) Tutun Mukherjee (New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2012) ISBN:9382178031ISBN 13:9789382178033. Print.

"Thak”/Freeze – Negotiating Narrative Positions in Adaptation: the Female in Tagore’s The Broken Nestand Ray’s Charulata in Filming Fiction: Tagore, Premchand, and Ray  ed. M. Asaduddin, Anuradha Ghosh (New Delhi: OUP, 2012) ISBN-13 9780198075936. Print.

“Dreams, Events, History: Karnad’s The Dreams of Tipu Sultan” Dibrugarh University Journal of English Studies, Dibrugarh University (No.16, 2006-08)

“In No Man’s Land: Mahesh Dattani’s Seven Steps Around the Fire” Journal of the Department of English, Gauhati University (Vol.6, March, 2007)

“Absurdist Edward Albee:  A reading of The Zoo Story, The Sandbox  and The American Dream”, Journal of the Department of English, Gauhati University (Vol.5, March, 2004)

"Looking Within, Looking Without: Review of Girish Karnad, The Dreams of Tipu Sultan, Bali: The Sacrifice", Journal of the Department of English, Gauhati University (Vol.6, March, 2004)

“Visual/ising Women”, Journal of the Department of English, Gauhati University (Vol.4, March, 2003)

“Vijay Tendulkar, Collected Plays in Translation with an Introduction by Samik Bandopadhyay. New Delhi: OUP, 2003.598 pp.”, Journal of the Department of English, Gauhati University (Vol.5, March, 2003)

“The Indian Shakespeare”, Journal of the Department of English, Gauhati University (Vol.2, March, 2000)

“Text, Performance, Interpretation and Pedagogy”, Dialogue, Journal of the North East India Forum for English Studies (Vol.1, October, 1996)

“Death and Writing in The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, Journal of the Department of English, Gauhati University (Vol.1, March, 1996)

UGC Major Research Project: The Marwaris in Assam: Identity and Integration. (2011-14) 

E-Pathsala UGC-MHRD Project: Paper Coordinator for Indian Writing in English. (2014-15)

Fulbright-Nehru Project: Theaters, Spectacles, Audiences: Indian and American Cultures of Viewership. (2015-16)

Department of English, Gauhati University

G.N.B. Nagar

Guwahati 781014, Assam: India

Phone: +919678004384

Email: ashaakc@gauhati.ac.in

sites.google.com/a/gauhati.ac.in/ashaakc/

Member of:

1. International Federation for Theatre Research
2. Indian Association for Women's Studies
   
3. Forum on Contemporary Theory
4. Fulbright Association

Lectures delivered / Seminar Presentations / Workshops conducted 2024

• "On the Road in India: Travelling Theatre Companies in the 19th and early 20th centuries". Cambridge South Asia Seminar at the Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, UK. 08/05/2024.
• “Indian Theatres: Evolution from the Classical to the Contemporary”. Invited Lecture at RADA- Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. King's College, London. 13/03/2024.

Lectures delivered / Seminar Presentations / Workshops conducted 2023

• “Culture is a Forbidden Word” - HEIs and Cultural Development. Faculty Induction Programme organized by UGC-HRDC, Gauhati University (13th September - 13th October, 2023). 15/09/2023.
• “Does Culture matter?” – Divisions, Demarcations, Discourse. 7-Day Faculty Development Programme on Narratives of Culture. Organized by the Department of English, The Assam Royal Global University, Guwahati. 21/09/2023.
• “Playing, Reading, Watching: Notes on Performance Texts”. A Symposium on Assamese Drama: Text & Performance. Organised by the Department of Assamese, Tezpur University. 27/09/2023.

Lectures delivered / Seminar Presentations / Workshops conducted 2022

• “Performing (in) the North East: Histories, Traditions, Identities”. at Refresher Course on Studies on North East Language, Literature & Culture, HRDC-GU.03/03/2022.
• “Archiving Performance: Examples from the West”. in NAT Archive Tathya Sangraha Bisayak Dikdarshan - Workshop organized by Srimanta Sankaradeva Kalakshetra, Guwahati. 08/05/2022.
• “Interpersonal Relationships: Leadership & Performance”. 2-day Principals and Academic Administrators’ Meet HRDC GU. 28/12/2022.

Lectures delivered / Seminar Presentations / Workshops conducted 2021

• World Theatre Day Talk at Hindustan Institute of Technology & Science, Chennai, organized by the Department of Languages. March 27, 2021. [Online lecture]
• “Thinking about Theatre in the Comparatist Mode: Questions of Praxis” at Aligarh Muslim University, January 21, 2021. [Online lecture]
• “Effect of NEP on Youth Empowerment and Sports Development” in a Webinar on Transformation Reforms under National Education Policy, 2020.Organised by IQAC, Gauhati University 04 August, 2021.
• “Sharing the Fulbright Experience: Reflections on NEP 2020” - Inaugural Lecture of the Colloquium Lecture Series under the Faculty of Arts, Gauhati University (GU). 18/08/2021

Lectures delivered / Seminar Presentations / Workshops conducted 2020

• “Performing Indigeneity: Negotiations of Culture, Environment, and Modernity”. Keynote Address at the National Seminar on “Modernity and Indigeneity: Shifting Perspectives in Culture, Literature, and Language” Department of English, Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh. 5-6 March 2020.
• “Theatre of the Northeast: From Chinha Jatra to the present”. Online Talk. Coconut Theatre Facebook Live.16th May 2020 at 6:00 PM.
•  “Intersectionality in Theatre: Northeast”. Organised by Agora, the Space, Guwahati. September 25, 2020. [Online Panel].
• “Theatre Historiography with special reference to North East India”. HRDC, GU. October 10, 2020. [Online Lecture].
• “Pain Pandemic and the Theatre”. Online Talk organized by USIEF & the US Consulate, Kolkata under its All India Speaker Series. November 16, 2020.
• “Women in Theatre: Special Focus – Assam”. November 21, 2020 Jairangam Theatre Festival, Jaipur. [Online Panel].
• “Theatre in Education and its Application in Indian Education System with NEP coming into Existence”. Dec 5, 2020. Jairangam Theatre Festival, Jaipur. [Online Panel].

Lectures delivered / Seminar Presentations / Workshops conducted 2019

• “Then and Now: Nation and Transnational Identity in Jyoti Prasad Agarwala’sJoymati (1935) and Jahnu Barua’s Ajeyo (2014)” Plenary Lecture at International Conference on Region/Nation/Trans-Nation: Literature-Cinema Interface. BITS Pilani, Goa Campus.  31 January – 2 February 2019.
• “Appropriations through Performance: Postcoloniality, History and Translation”. Plenary Lecture at UGC National Seminar on “Translating Identity” 29-30 March 2019, Department of English, Aligarh Muslim University.  
• “Backpedalling Urbanism, Singing a Different Song: Theatre under the Sal Trees”. (Presentation at World Congress of the International Federation for Theatre Research on Theatre, Performance and Urbanism. Shanghai, People’s Republic of China. 8-12 July, 2019)

Lectures delivered / Seminar Presentations / Workshops conducted 2018

• Invited Lecture on Shakespeare on the occasion of Shakespeare Day at Royal Global University, Guwahati. April 23, 2018.
• Visiting Fellow at North Eastern Hill University, Shillong. 25-31 May, 2018. (Taught one Shakespeare text and conducted a 2-day Theatre Workshop on Voice and Body, culminating in an enacted play-reading of The Tempest).
• “Migrating Macbeths: Tracking Travelling Texts”. (Presentation as Panelist at World Congress of the International Federation for Theatre Research on Theatre and Migration: Theatre, Nation and Identity between Migration and Stasis. Belgrade, Serbia. 9-13 July, 2018).

Lectures delivered / Seminar Presentations / Workshops conducted 2017

• “Re-Articulating Desire, Re-Claiming Identity: Colonial Modernity and Representations of the Third Gender” (Refresher Course in Cultural Studies at Tezpur University: January 2, 2017).
• “Stage and Page: Theories and Practices of the Theatre”. (April 4, 2017: Lecture & Theatre workshop at Arya Vidyapeeth College: Guwahati).
• “Shakespeare, Space, Spectators”. (Keynote at “Performing Shakespeare: Theory and Praxis” April 10-14, 2017, organized by Department of English, Assam University, Silchar).
• “Moving between Texts: Charulata”. (Special Invited Lecture.  April 11, 2017 organized by Film Club, Department of English, Assam University, Silchar).
• “Theatre Heterotopias and Suhracharya Rabha’s Badungduppa” (Plenary Speaker at National Seminar on “Ethnicity and Identity in the North East: Indian writing in English”. February18, 2017 at University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya).
• “Many Worlds, Many Shakespeares”. (Public Lecture to mark Shakespeare’s 400^th death anniversary organized by Apsara. November 29, 2017: ITA Pragjyoti, Guwahati).
• “Madness as Motif: Theatrical Interventions and the Renaissance”. (Invited Speaker at National Seminar on

• “Re-thinking Renaissance: Perceptions and Representations”. November 15, 2017: organized by Department of English, Mrinalini Datta Mahavidyapith & Department of History, West Bengal State University, Barasat).

Lectures delivered / Seminar Presentations / Workshops conducted 2016

• “Constructing a Theatre Anthology for a Western Audience: India”. Part of panel on ALTERNATIVE THEATRICAL PASTS with Professor Marvin Carlson (CUNY & Cornell University) and Professor Xiaomei Chen (UC Davis) at the International Federation for Theatre Research Conference. June 13-17, 2016. Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. 
• “Reading, Teaching, Performing Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice and Hamlet through Literary and Performance Filters”. (Invited Lecture at National Conference on “Reading, Teaching and Performing Shakespeare in the Contemporary Times”. September 26-27, 2016 organized by ELTAI, Assam Chapter and Sonapur College.
• Chaired Panel on Contextualising History in the Cinema and Theatre of Northeastern India. With Manju Borah, L.Somy Roy, Kopil Bora. Cultures of Peace – Festival of the Northeast. November 10, 2016 organized by Zubaan.

Lectures delivered / Workshops conducted as Fulbright Fellow, 2015-16

• “Mrichhakatikam, Rasa and Sanskrit Drama” (October 7, 2015: Undergrad Class at City College of New York, NY).
• “Vocabularies of Modernity and the Theatres of India: Hybridity, Syncretism and ‘Rootedness’” (October 15, 2015: Invited Lecture at The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY).
• “Modern Indian Theatre: Genesis and Evolution” (November 4, 2015: Public Lecture at West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, US, sponsored by WVU International Programs & School of Theatre and Dance).
• Workshop on Voice, Movements and Rasa (November 4, 2015: School of Theatre and Dance, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV).
• India in World Theatre History (December 3, 2015: Graduate Class at Nash Hall, Columbia University, NY, NY).

Invited Lectures delivered at Academic Staff College, Gauhati University

• The Gaze in Visual Media
• Media Representing Women/Women in the Media: Women, Media, Policy
• History and the Women’s Narratives of the Bengal Renaissance
• Deification and the Female Form in Ray’s Devi
• Modernity and Western Art - the Odalisque
• Modernity and Western Theatre
• Reading Tagore through Ray: Charulata
• Retelling Women’s Narratives on Film: Joymati and Adayja

[This is a sample only – among numerous other invited lectures prior to 2015]

Scholars for the PhD Degree:

Saurabhi Sarmah, (2008) Performing Violence: Representation of Women and Violence in the Plays of Mahesh Dattani, Vijay Tendulkar, Manjula Padmanabhan and Dina Mehta. Degree awarded: 2013.

Monami Porasor, (2008) Performing Gender, Confronting the Binary: Liminal Gender Acts in the plays of Mahesh Dattani and other Cultural Texts. Degree Awarded: 2016.

Sibsankar Majumder, Thesis Title: Political Theatre in West Bengal. Submitted: 2015. Degree Awarded: 2016

Manab Medhi, (2010) Jaymati Kunwari and the Politics of Representation: A Reading of Relevant Cultural Texts. Thesis submitted: 2016. Degree Awarded: 2016

Mousumi Bhattacharjee (2010, Registered in the Department of Folklore, GU): Puppetry in Assam: Continuity and Change. Degree Awarded: 2016

Abdul Mubid Islam, Thesis Title: (2011) Voices of the Suppressed – Violence and Body Politics in the Plays of Wole Soyinka. Degree Awarded: 2018.

Maheshwari Devi Thesis Title: (2011) The Theatre of Ratan Thiyam in the context of Modern Manipuri Theatre. Degree Awarded: 2018.

Jushna Barua, (2013) Registered at the Department of Women's Studies, GU. Thesis Title: The Female Journalist in Hollywood Movies (1975-2015: Enforcing and Challenging Stereotypes. Degree Awarded: 2020

Anindita Das Khargaria, (2013) Thesis Title: Narratives of Marwari Women in Assam. Submitted 2019.

Ayushman Dutta, (2018) Thesis Title (provisional): Space and Resistance: Theatre and the Environment in Kalakshetra Manipur

Nawab Tabassum Yesmin (2019)

Gunjan Das (2020)

Sajida Begum

Marshina Ahmed

Chandana Das

Suzan Poudel

Palash Nath

Swarnali Kundu

Scholars for the MPhil Degree:

Manab Medhi (2009) Filming the Fiction: Hunger and Sexuality in Dr Bhaben Saikia.

Mahashweta Datta (2009) Locating the Female: A Reading of  Tagore’s Nashtanirh vis-à-vis Ray’s Charulata and Mahanagar vis-à-vis Mitra’s Abotaronika 

Dalim Das (2009) “Ajantrik” / Ajantrik and the Man-Machine Dialectic.

Ananya Bhattacharjee (2010) The Silenced Women in Colonial Bengal: A study of Tagore’s Chokher Bali and Rituparna Ghosh’s Retelling.

Rajkumari Sujata Singha (2011) Framing the Bard in India: Vishal Bharadwaj’s Maqbool and Omkara.

Deboshree Roy (2014) Body, Space and Audience in Yayati, Hayavadana and Nagamandala.

Sukanya Das (2017) Against the Canon: Revisiting Surpanakha through Feminist Lenses in Selected Works. Degree Awarded: 2020

Smita Kasyap (2019)