About

Assistant Professor and Head at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Guwahati.

Before joining IIIT Guwahati, I taught at the Department of English, Central University of Karnataka. I've an M Phil (2010) from the Department of English, University of Hyderabad, and a PhD (2014) from the Department of English Literature, The English & Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. For my PhD, I had worked on natural history narratives from India between 1857 and 1950, and  my M Phil was on colonial tiger hunting narratives.

My research interests include the history of cinema, natural disaster and discourses on the leisure cultures of the British Empire. I've published papers on the Bengali experience of the First World War, famine rhetoric in British India, cinema propaganda in colonial India and the big game hunting culture of the Raj era. In IIITG, I teach courses on English Language, Anglo-American Science Fiction, Introduction to Film Studies and Indian Writing in English.

For my publications, check my google scholar page at https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cScDTZAAAAAJ&hl=en 

Research Interests

1. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature
2. British Empire and Literature
3. Science Fiction Studies
4. The Long Nineteenth Century

Cinema/Filmography

1. Production Assistant for upcoming documentary films on fairs in Cooch Behar. 

2. My film "Samir's Cinema" was released on Youtube in September, 2023. (https://youtu.be/2JWbAaSrUtQ?si=MDGwpeu6e4Cfgb-N) 

3. Jury for 8th Art Programme for Chotamota Film Festival. 2019.  

Teaching:

1. English(HS101)
2. Science Fiction I (HS203) & Science Fiction II (HS403)
3. Indian Writing in English (HS303)

PHD

1. Research Methodology (HS701)

2. Emerging Trends in English Literature (HS704)

Doctoral Research Supervision

1. Ankita Das: In Search of Picturesque, Orient and Empire: A Study of British Women’s Travel Memoirs on India (1800-1875) (joined July, 2017)

2. Sriya Sarma: Postcolonial Tea: A Study of Selected Fictions on Assam Tea Plantations (joined February, 2022)

3. Tulika Banik: Textual Cultures of Hunger: Starvation and Human Bodies in the British Empire, 1870 - 1930 (joined February, 2023)

Projects

1. Co-Investigator (alongside Dr Sourit Bhattacharya & Dr Binayak Bhattacharya), The British Empire, Scotland and Indian Famines: Writings on Food Crisis in Colonial India, A Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Network ( https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/rseaward_indianfamines/partners/)

2. Co-Principal Investigator (alongside Dr Manas Ghosh & Dr Mrinalini Ghosh), Fairground Experience in Cooch Behar, An Arts Practice project supported by India Foundation for the Arts

https://indiaifa.org/grants-projects/manas-kumar-ghosh.html  

https://sites.google.com/view/fairsincoochbehar/home 

Invited Lectures

1. Workshop on Research Methodology under Faculty Development Programme, Dhupguri Girls' College. February 20, 2024. 

2. Lectures for MA English Paper VIII under Netaji Subhas Open University ICT. October 30, 2019

3. Lecture on Business Writing for the programme on “Communication Skills for Career Advancement” being offered by the Skill Development Cell, B.Borooah College, February 02, 2019.

Convenor

1.National Seminar on Conflict and Environment in the North East: Forging a Green Lens November 3 and 4, 2017, Indian Institute of Information Technology Guwahati. (sponsored by ICSSR)

2. Conference on The British Empire and Colonial Famines: History, Culture, Critique, Second Conference under the RSE Research Network Grant for the Project “The British Empire, Scotland, and Indian Famines: Writings on Food Crisis in Colonial India”, Gr. No. 69777), January 7- 8, 2023, Indian Institute of Information Technology Guwahati. (sponsored by the Royal Society of Edinburgh) 

3. Co-convenor, Seminar and Public Events on 80 years of the 1943 Bengal Famine: Remembering through Talks and Events under the RSE Research Network Grant for the Project “The British Empire, Scotland, and Indian Famines: Writings on Food Crisis in Colonial India”, Gr. No. 69777), Maulana Abul Kalam Azam University of Technology, January 5-8, 2024. 

Recent Publications: Journals

1. Rajarshi Mitra, “Administering Disseminations: Film Exhibition and Censorship During the Great War in India”, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, (2023) DOI: 10.1080/03086534.2023.2166389

2. Rajarshi Mitra,“To Hunt or not to Hunt: Tiger Hunting, Conservation and Collaboration in Colonial India”. International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity 7 (Oct, 2019).  DOI:  https://doi.org/10.18352/hcm.587 

3. “The Famine in British India:   Quantification Rhetoric and Colonial Disaster Management” in the Special Issue on 'Disaster Communications: Media, Crisis and Representation,’ Journal of Creative Communications. (September, 2019)  http://crc.sagepub.com/content/7/1-2/153.short

4.  “Crossing the Border and Tasting the Nation: the Indian Experience in Chitrita Banerji’s Eating India: Exploring a Nation’s Cuisine” Rupkatha Journal 3.3 (2011) http://rupkatha.com/V3/n3/08_Eating_India.pdf.