CURRICULUM VITAE
EDUCATION
Ph.D., University of Cambridge, English Literature (2006)
M.A. (First Class Honours), University of Auckland, English Literature (2000)
B.A., University of Auckland, English Literature (1994)
ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT
Associate Professor of World Literature, Division of English, School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2015-present)
Assistant Professor of World Literature, Division of English, School of Humanities, NTU, Singapore (2006-2015)
AWARDS/HONOURS/SCHOLARSHIPS
Shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award (2023)
Nanyang Education Award, School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2014)
Nanyang Education Award Nominee, School of Humanities, NTU, Singapore (2013)
Nanyang Education Award Nominee, School of Humanities, NTU, Singapore (2012)
Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarship, Ministry of Education, New Zealand (2002-2006)
Overseas Research Students (ORS) Award, Universities UK (2002-2006)
Honorary New Zealand Prince of Wales Scholar, Cambridge Commonwealth Trust, UK (2002-2006)
Elected Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society, University of Cambridge, UK (2004)
Senior Prize in English, University of Auckland, New Zealand (1993)
ACADEMIC TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Nanyang Technological University, Assistant/Associate Professor of World Literature (2006-present)
Undergraduate Courses:
HL2022 South Asian Literature
HL2032 African Literature
HL3014 Latin American Literature
HL2021 Literature of Empire
HL8008 Introduction to Magical Realism
HL1001 Introduction to the Study of Literature
Graduate Courses:
HL7110 Contemporary Literature and Culture
HL7888 Directed Study in Literature
HL7901 Form and Content in Contemporary Narrative
University of Cambridge, Undergraduate Supervisor for Trinity, Queens’, and Girton Colleges (2005)
Commonwealth and International Literature in English (English Tripos Part II)
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Too Far From Antibes. Singapore: Penguin Random House, 2022.
Affective Disorders: Emotion in Colonial and Postcolonial Literature. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2019.
On Lightness in World Literature. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Journal Articles
‘Strange Mythologies: Cultural and Linguistic Opacity in Argonauts of the Western Pacific.’ Prose Studies 43.1 (2024): 52-73.
‘Indices of the Esoteric: Crime, Forensic Science, and Oral Culture.’ Research in African Literatures 54.2 (2024): 21-39.
‘The Literature of Cacao: Jorge Amado’s Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon.’ ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature 54.3-4 (2023): 127-55.
‘“Intensities of Feeling”: Emotion, Espionage, and the Ottoman Empire.’ English Studies 102.3 (2021): 342-61.
‘Affective Entropy: Cultural Difference and the Decline of Wonder on Ivu’ivu.’ Novel: A Forum on Fiction 53.1 (2020): 96-114.
‘The Mysteries of Mumbai: Terrorism and Banality in Sacred Games.’ Modern Fiction Studies 65.2 (2019): 285-307.
‘Roberto Bolaño’s 2666: Serial Murder and Narrative Necrosis.’ Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 59.3 (2018): 307-18.
‘“Our Supreme Objective”: Nehru, A Suitable Boy, and the Moderation of Feeling.’ Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry 3.2 (2016): 167-83.
‘Colonial Modernity and Urban Space: Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo.’ Journal of Urban Cultural Studies 1.2 (2014): 255-72.
‘“Every Trivial Little Thing”: Sei Shonagon and the Poetics of Insignificance.’ a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 28.1 (2013): 86-111.
‘Reading the Uninteresting: Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English, August: An Indian Story.’ Contemporary Literature 53.3 (2012): 493-516.
‘“A Raging Sirocco”: Structures of Dysphoric Feeling in Midaq Alley.’ Journal of Arabic Literature 42.1 (2011): 29-48.
‘On Superficiality: Truman Capote and the Ceremony of Style.’ Journal of Modern Literature 34.3 (2011): 128-48.
‘Partitioning Bodies: Literature, Abduction, and the State.’ Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 11.1 (2009): 35-49.
‘Of Territorial Borders and Test Cricket: Exploring the Boundaries of the Postcolonial State.’ Journal of Commonwealth Literature 44.1 (2009): 23-34.
‘City of Sieges: Literature, Communal Violence, and Urban Space.’ Journal of Postcolonial Writing 44.4 (2008): 345-54.
CONFERENCES/LECTURES
‘On Stuplimity: Terrorism, Communal Violence, and Literature.’ Ethics of Representation, Forms of Resistance, and Narratives of Discomfort. South Asian Literary Association (SALA) Conference, Rider University, New Jersey, USA, 6-7 April 2024.
‘Enchanted Topographies: Forensic Science and the Supernatural in Nii Ayikwei Parkes’ Tail of the Blue Bird.’ Captivating Criminality 9. International Crime Fiction Association (ICFA) Conference, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, 2-4 March 2023.
‘Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games: Disaster, Emotion, and the Everyday.’ Disaster Discourse: Representations of Catastrophe. Department of English, University of Bucharest, Romania, 2-4 June 2022.
‘Visible Cities: The Semiotics of Colonial Urban Space.’ Breaking Boundaries: Reimagining Borders in Postcolonial and Migrant Studies. Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, 3 September 2021.
‘Cosmopolitan Cairo.’ Global Cities: Culture, Ecology, World Literature. School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 11-12 June 2020.
‘Forensic Narratology: Reading the Pseudo-Singulative in Ciudad Juárez.’ Captivating Criminality 6. International Crime Fiction Association (ICFA) Conference, Gabriele d’Annunzio University, Pescara, Italy, 12-15 June 2019.
‘Structures of Insignificance: Realism and Bureaucracy.’ Reproducing and Reconstructing Reality: An International Conference on Realism in Post-WWII Literature. Centre for the Study of Foreign Literature and Culture, Nanjing University, China, 26-28 October 2018.
‘Nationalism, Hybridity, and Urban Space: Queen Farida Square, 1938-48.’ Space, Place, and Hybridity in the National Imagination. Grenoble Alpes University, France, 23-24 November 2017.
‘Bureaucratic Style: Postcolonial Literature and the Aesthetics of Waiting.’ Waiting as Cultural Practice: An Interdisciplinary Conference. University of Paderborn, Germany, 20-22 May 2016.
‘Against Feeling: Realism, Violence, and the Secular State.’ Trauma, Memory, and Healing in Asian Literature and Culture. Department of English Language and Literature, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, 27 November 2015.
‘Loitering in Rio: On Machado de Assis’ Posthumous Memoirs.’ Sustainable Networks: The Enlightenment to the Contemporary. Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and South-Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 13-15 June 2014.
‘“The Bewildering and the Boring”: Literature, Entropy, and the Indian Administrative Service.’ International Society for the Study of Narrative (ISSN) Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, 27-29 June 2013.
‘On Voltaire, Violence, and Aesthetic Pleasure.’ The Aesthetics of Suffering. Department of English, National Taipei University of Technology, Taiwan, 23-24 November 2012.
‘Postcolonial Narratology.’ Department of English, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Macau, 25 August 2011.
‘Decoding Cairo: Colonial Modernity and Urban Space.’ Modern Language Association (MLA) Conference, Los Angeles, USA, 6-9 January 2011.
‘Affective Disorders: Emotion, Modernity, and Narrative.’ Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) Conference, Chaminade University, Honolulu, Hawaii, 13-14 November 2010.
‘“The Map and the Territory”: Reading Postcolonial Border Narratives.’ Mapping the World: Migration and Border-Crossing. Centre for the Humanities and Social Sciences, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan, 31 October-1 November 2009.
‘Representing the State: Abduction and Recovery in the Literature of Partition.’ Gender and Sexuality in South Asian Literature and Culture. South Asian Literary Association (SALA) Conference, San Francisco, USA, 26-27 December 2008.
‘“The Aura of Terror”: Violence and the Uncanny in Vibhuti Narain Rai’s Curfew in the City.’ Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore, 24 October 2007.
‘Postcolonial Cartographies: Lahore, 1947-55.’ Colonial and Postcolonial Spaces: An Interdisciplinary Conference. Kingston University, UK, 6-7 September 2007.
‘State Responsibility and the Literature of Partition.’ Irresponsibility. School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 28-30 September 2006.
‘Ethnocidal Imaginaries: Rumour, Violence, and Narrative.’ Aesthetics and Politics in Postcolonial Studies. University of Northampton, UK, 8 April 2005.
‘Literature, Nationalism, and the 1947 Partition of India.’ Leckhampton Society, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, UK, 16 November 2004.
‘Comparative Curfews: Communal Violence and Minorities.’ Minority States: Violence, Nation-State, Multiculturalism. University of Oxford, UK, 18 June 2004.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Member of the Advisory Board of Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings (2011-present)
Reader for the following publishers: Edinburgh University Press, Gale, Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge, Sage (2012-present)
Reader for the following journals: a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, Crime Fiction Studies, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, Modern Asian Studies, Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings, Novel: A Forum on Fiction, Postcolonial Text, South Asian Review, Twentieth-Century Literature, Wasafiri (2005-present)
CONFERENCE ORGANIZATION
Co-organizer, Transcultural Imaginaries: Making New, Making Strange. School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 14-17 June 2013
Co-organizer, Irresponsibility. School of Humanities, NTU, Singapore, 28-30 September 2006
Co-organizer, Aesthetics and Politics in Postcolonial Studies. University of Northampton, UK, 8-9 April 2005
ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE
Final Year Project Coordinator, Division of English, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2020-present)
Co-chair of the NTU Social Science Research Thematic Grant (SSRTG) Internal Review Committee, NTU, Singapore (2023-present)
Member of the NTU Research Council Sub-Committee (Discipline Cluster EP4), NTU, Singapore (2022-present)
Member of the NTU Teaching Council, NTU, Singapore (2020-present)
Member of the SOH Nanyang Assistant Professorship Committee (2023-present)
Member of the Graduate Committee, Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2018-2020)
Member of the Faculty Search Committee, Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2018-2020)
Chair of the Publicity Committee, Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2017-2020)
Member of the Management Committee, Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2008-2020)
Director of Graduate Studies, Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2014-2017)
Member of the Faculty Search Committee (Asian Literature), Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2017)
Member of the Faculty Search Committee (British Romanticism), Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2017)
Member of the Faculty Search Committee (Interactional Linguistics), Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, NTU, Singapore (2017)
Member of the Faculty Search Committee (Philosophy of Science), Division of Philosophy, NTU, Singapore (2015-2016)
Member of the Curriculum Committee, Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2014-2016)
Chair of the Faculty Search Committee (Contemporary Literature), Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2015)
Member of the Faculty Search Committee (Creative Writing), Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2015)
Member of the Graduate Committee, Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2011-2014)
Chair of the Curriculum Committee, Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2010-2014)
Member of the School of Humanities Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, NTU, Singapore (2010-2014)
Chair of the Publicity Committee, Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2008-2010)
Member of the Curriculum Committee, Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2006-2010)
Chair of the Faculty Search Committee (Australian/New Zealand Literature), Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2008-2009)
Chair of the School of Humanities Library Committee, NTU, Singapore (2006-2009)
Member of the Faculty Search Committee (Pre-1800 British Literature), Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2007-2008)
Member of the Faculty Search Committee (Cultural Studies), Division of English, NTU, Singapore (2007)