Dr. P. P. Raveendran

CURRICULUM VITAE

P P Raveendran, academic, critic, editor and translator has specialized in modern English literature, Indian literature and cultural studies. A practicing critic in English and Malayalam, hiscritical works in Malayalam include Edapedalukal:Sahityam, Siddhantam, Rashtreeyam [Interventions: Literature, Theory, Politics, 1997], Michel Foucault: Vartamanathinte Charitram [Michel Foucault: History of the Present, 1998] Adhunikanantaram: Vicharam Vayana [After Modernism: Reflections Reading, 1999], Samskara Padhanam: Oru Aamukham [Cultural Studies: An Introduction, 2002] and Veendeduppukal: Sahityam, Samskaram, Aagolata [Recoveries: Literature, Culture, Globality, 2006]. His published books in English are Poetry and the New Sensibility (1996), Postmodernism: Positions and Perspectives (2000), Joseph Mundasseri (2002), OV Vijayan (2009) and Texts Histories Geographies: Reading Indian Literature (2009) as well as the edited volumes The Best of Kamala Das (1991) and The Best of Jayanta Mahapatra (1995). An anthology of Kadammanitta Ramakrishnan’s poetry under the title The Cat Is My Grief Today and Other Poems, edited and translated by him, has been published by the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi (2009). A contributor to the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Postcolonial Literatures in English (2nd ed., London and New York: Routledge, 2005), Raveendran has published extensively in India and abroad, including in such journals as American Notes and Queries (ANQ), Chandrabhaga, Economic and Political Weekly, Indian Literature, Indian Journal of American Studies, Indian Journal of English Studies, Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature and Journal of Commonwealth Literature. A recipient of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi’s K uttippuzha Krishna Pillai Award for Literary Criticism, he has authored about one hundred and thirty research papers in his areas of specialization. He has successfully supervised the research of seventeen doctoral candidates and double that number of M Phil candidates. He is presently engaged in co-editing an anthology of Malayalam literature for Oxford University Press. A former Visiting Fellow at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University (Germany), he has also held such positions as the Dean, Faculty of Language and Literature, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam (Kerala), and the Director of the University’s School of Letters. He has served on the General Council of the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, as well as on the Akademi’s Malayalam Advisory Board. He is currently Dean, Faculty of Aesthetics and Art History, Kerala Kalamandalam Deemed University of Arts and Culture as well as Professor of English at School of Letters, Mahatma Gandhi University, where he also edits the literary journal Haritham. P P Raveendran, 2004-2010Books
Texts Histories Geographies: Reading Indian Literature. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2009.
OV Vijayan (Makers of Indian Literature). New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2009.
Veendeduppukal: Sahityam Samskaram Aagolata. (Recoveries: Literature, Culture and Globality). Kottayam Books, 2006. (Malayalam)

Edited/Translated Book
The Cat is My Grief Today and Other Poems by Kadammanitta Ramakrishnan, translated and edited by PPRaveendran, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2009.
Shraddha: The Poetry of Vinayachandran, Chengannur: Rainbow Publishers, 2004 (Malayalam; co-editor) Papers (English) “Introduction,” The Writings of MT Vasudevan Nair by MT Vasudevan Nair (Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2010)
“Indian Modernity: The Aesthetic Dimension,” Samyukta 9.2 (2009): 7-22.
“Decolonization and the Dynamics of Translation: An Essay in Historical Poetics,” Indian Literature 252 (2009): 114-25.
“Modernity and Knowledge Production: Malayalam Thought Processes in the Modern Period,” Science, Literature and Aesthetics, PHISPC Volume No XV, Part 3, ed.
Amiya Dev. (New Delhi: PHISPC/Centre for the Study of Civilizations, 2009). 743-68. “Chronicle of a Life Retold: Lanthanbatheriyile Luthiniyakal,” Malayalam Literary
Survey 29.3-4 (2008): 67-72.
“Poetry and the Public: A Note on Kadammanitta Ramakrishnan,” Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature 45 (2008): 21-34.
“Fiction as Cultural Fusion: Narrative Shifts in Recent Malayalam Short Story,” Malayalam Literary Survey 29.1 (2008): 95-103.
“Once Below a Time: The Malayalam Short Story Today,” Journal of Literature and Aesthetics 7.1-2 (2007): 13-18.
“Translation as Hoax: Art, Othering and Life Writing,” Indian Literature 237 (2007): 185-201.
“Kumaran Asan and the Dialectic of the Indian Renaissance,” Malayalam Literary Survey 28.1 (2007): 12-22.
“Fantasy and the Historical Imagination in Latin American and Malayalam Fiction,” Indian Journal of English Studies 44(2007): 188-202.
“Genealogies of Indian Literature.” Economic and Political Weekly 41.25 (2006): 2558- 63.
Review of Wind Flowers: Contemporary Short Fiction in Malayalam, ed. V Abdulla and RE Asher, Indian Literature 233 (2006): 190-92.
“Fiction and Reception: Reconstructions of the Mahabharata in Malayalam.” Indian Literature 225 (2005): 152-61. Reprinted in TRS Sharma, ed. Reflections and
Variations on the Mahabharata (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2009).
“Jayanta Mahapatra (1928-),” Encyclopaedia of Post-colonial Literatures in English, 2nd edn. Vol. II (London and New York: Routledge, 2005) (joint author)
“Reading Mundasseri Today,” Malayalam Literary Survey 26.2 (2004): 45-51.
“The Literary Criticism of Meenakshi Mukherjee,” Indian Criticism in English, ed., PK Rajan, Jaipur: Rawat Publishers, 2004. 150-59.

Papers (Malayalam)
“Kadammanitta as Minor Literature”, Kerala Kavita 41 (2009):
“Kamala Das: Poetry and the Self,” Bhashaposhini (July 2009)
“Aakhyaanavum Aankoymayum,” Akshayam 1.1 (Jan-March 2009): 7-10.
“Harold Pinter: The Stage and the Manacle,” Deshabhimani Weekly 40.33 (2009): 18-20.
“The Nation in ‘Veena Poovu’,” ‘Veena Poovu’ Padhanangal, ed. Jayakrishnan, (Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Bhasha Institute, 2008), 35-41.
“Modernity and the Development of Prose,” Sahitya Lokam 33.1-2 (2007): 20-37.
“Language, Culture, Colonialism,” Samskara Padhanam: Siddhantam, Charitram, Prayogam, ed. Malayala Padhana Samgham (Kottayam: Current Books, 2007) 329-41.
“The New World and Uncertainties: The Unconscious in the Poetry of Edasseri,” Mathrubhumi Weekly 85. 38 (2007): 32-39.
“Ayyappa Paniker and the Romantic Mindset,” Kerala Kavita 39 (2007): 340-47.
“Culture, the State and the Left Tradition,” Madhyamam Weekly 9.1-2 (2006): 38-41.
“Writing, Resistance and Indian English Literature,” Mathrubhumi Weekly 82.48 (2005):40-45.
“Cultural Criticism in Malayalam,” Vijnana Kairali 36.1(2005): 14-18.
“ The Birds of Bengal,” Mathrubhumi Weekly 82.28 (2004): 36-40.
“The Century of the ‘Blooms Day’,” Mathrubhumi Weekly 82. 19 (2004): 14-17.
“The Mahabharata Novels in Malayalam,” Mathrubhumi Weekly 82.12 (2004): 16-20.
“Politics of the Bhakti, Materiality of Poetry: On the Krishna Poems of Sugatha Kumari,”Bhasha Poshini 27.12 (2004): 42-47.
“The Word Incomplete,” introduction to Alanjavar Anweshichavar, by R Narendra Prasad, Kottayam: DC Books, 2004.

Papers at National/ International Seminars
UGC-SAP Seminar on Indian and Cross-Cultural Approaches to Marginality, Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 22-24 March 2010 (Paper:
“Ambivalences of Modernity”)

Punnasseri Nambi Memorial Lecture, 2010, Government Sanskrit College, Pattambi, 2 February 2010 (Lecture: Knowledge and Power in Nineteenth Century Kerala)
Second International Theatre Festival Kerala, 2009, Kerala Sangeeta Nataka Akademi, Trichur, 23 December 2009 (Paper: “Theatre, Narration, Modernity”) International

Conference on “the Political Economy of Social Division,” Forum for Contemporary Theory, Baroda, and the Centre for Women’s Studies, University of
Kerala, 14-17 December, 2009, Plenary Panel (Paper: “From Truth Telling to True Taste: Fiction, Re-writing, Modernity”).

Sahitya Akademi Sabdana National Seminar on “Methodology for the Translation of Premodern Texts in India, Shimoga, 23-24 October 2009 (Paper: “Translation and Colonial Values: Two Views on Modernity”)

University Seminar on Capacity Building and Enhancement Initiatives on Research Projects, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, 2 April 2009 (Lecture on “Research
Projects in the Humanities”)

National Seminar on Cultural Studies in India, Institute of English, University of Kerala, 19-20 March 2009 (Plenary lecture: “Theroizing Cultural Studies”)

CLAI Biennial International Conference on Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad and English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, 28-31 January
2009 (Plenary paper: “Decolonization and the Dynamics of Translation: An Essay in Historical Poetics”)

National Conference on New Horizons in Indological Studies, Sree Sankaracharya
University of Sanskrit, Kalady, 15-17 January 2009 (Keynote lecture on Literary Criticism)

Samyukta-La Trobe University International Seminar on Many Modernities, Thiruvananthapuram, 11-12 December 2008 (Paper: “Literature and Indian Modernity”).
CIIL-University of Kerala National Seminar on Translation, Institute of English, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, 4-5 September 2008 (Paper: “Translation as

Decolonization: Literary Historiography and the Dynamics of Translation”). DSA Comparative Literature Workshop on the Historiography of Modern Indian
Literature: Space, Time, Language in Modernity, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 15-17 July 2008 (Paper: “Modernity, Historiography, Genealogy”)

National Seminar on World Literature in the Context of Comparative Literature, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, 26-28 March 2008. (Paper: “Indian
Literature and the Dialectic of Modernity”)

Sahitya Akademi National Seminar on Narratives, Thunchan Parampu, Tirur, 2-4 February 2008. (Paper: “Paradigm Shifts in Narration”)

National Workshop on “Texts and Textualities,” Department of Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad, 8-10 January 2008. (Plenary Lecture: Literature, History and
Literary History”)

National Seminar on Indian English Literature and Literature in English Translation, Orissa Researchrs’ Association, Cuttack, 9 May 2007 (Key-note lecture on “Problems in Translation”).

Current Trends in Comparative Literature, Centre for Comparative Literature, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, 20-21 February 2007 (Paper: “Literary
Historiography”)

Sahitya Akademi National Seminar on the Narratives of the Self, School of Letters, Mahatma Gandhi University, 8-9 February 2007. (Paper: “Modernity and Self-Writing”)

ICPR National Seminar on “Science, Literature and Aesthetics,” New Delhi, 25-27 August 2006 (Paper: “Modern Malayalam Thought”)

National Seminar on the Indian Traditions of Translation, South Gujarat University, Surat, 10-11 March 2006 (Paper: “Translation and the Interpretation of the Self”).

International Seminar on “Myth, Magic and History: Fiction in Latin America and India,” Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 23-25 February 2006 (Paper: “Fantasy and the Historical Imagination in Malayalam and Latin American Fiction”)

International Seminar on Comparative Literature on the theme “Literature in the Age of Globalization,” organized by School of Letters, Mahatma Gandhi University in
collaboration with Comparative Literature Association of India, Kottayam, 31 January and 1 February 2006 (Coordinator of the Seminar)

Kulturwissenchaftliches Forschungskolloquium, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, 17 May 2005 (“Myth, History and Translation: A Critique with Reference to
Malayalam”)

National Seminar on the Postmodern Turn in Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Calicut, 22-23 March 2005 (Paper: “Interpretation and Textual Circulation:
Reflections Memory, History and Fiction”)

National Seminar on Current Theories and Their Impact on the Teaching of Literature, Department of English, St. Joseph’s College, Tiruchirapalli, 9-10 February 2005
(Valedictory Lecture: “New Historicism and the Teaching of Shakespeare”)

National Seminar on Malayalam Novel and the Social Changes in the Post-Independence Era, Department of Malayalam, Madras University, Chennai, 24-25 January 2005 (Paper: “Narration and Patriarchy: Reflections on Contemporary Malayalam Novel”)

CIIL-Samyukta National Seminar on “Translation and Resistance,” Thiruvananthapuram, 11-12 November 2004. (Paper: “Translation as Hoax: Art and Othering in Malayalam Life Writing”)

Sahitya Akademi Seminar on “Changing Malayalam, Changing Malayalee,” Thunchan Parampu, Tirur, 21-22 October 2004. (Paper: “Changing Malayalee Selves.”)

National Seminar on “Translation and the Processes of Othering,” Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, 6-8 October 2004 (Plenary
Speaker: “Translation as Othering: a Case Study from Malayalam”)

Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Seminar on “New Voices,” Thiruvananthapuram, 10-14 September 2004 (Chairperson/Discussant).

National Seminar on “Indian Intellectual Traditions: Paradigms of Knowing and Experiencing,” Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, 22-24 April 2004
(Paper: “Fiction and Reception: Epic Reconstructions in Malayalam).

International Seminar on “the Mahabharata: Texts, Contexts, Readings,” Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 27-29 March 2004 (Paper: “Epic Reception as Translation:
Fictional Readings of the Mahabharata in Malayalam”).

Sahitya Akademi National Seminar on the Contexts of Cherusseri, Payyannur, 27-29 February 2004 (Paper: “The Bhakti Cult in Modern Malayalam Poetry”)