Dr. RAJESH V. NAIR

Assistant Professor In English

MA, PhD

Rajesh V. Nair is Assistant Professor of English School of Letters, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam. He completed his doctoral research from University of Kerala on biography studies. An approved research supervisor of Mahatma Gandhi University, his areas of interest include life writing studies, graphic narratives, cultural studies etc. With more than 16 years of teaching experience at both graduate and post graduate levels, he authored books such as Life Writing Studies: A Bibliography (2017}, Politics of Life Writing: A Study of Mahatma Gandhi’s Select English Biographies (2016), Critical Musings: Essays on Literature and Culture (2016), and Autobiography of Jacob Ramavarman the Native Missionary (Translation)(2016), apart from being the Guest Editor of Samyukta’s special number on Life Writing (2012). He has published extensively in international and national journals including Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (Routledge), Indian Journal of Gender Studies (Sage) etc. on areas such as graphic novel, biography, memory studies, visual culture, cultural studies and Malayalam fiction.

EDUCATION

PhD in Biography Studies (2013)

University of Kerala, India

Title: Politics of Life Writing: A Study of Select Biographies of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in English

MA in English Language and Literature(1999)

University of Hyderabad

Areas of Specialization

Life Writing Studies, Memory Studies, Travel and Cultural Mobility, Ethnography Studies, Sub cultural Studies, Diaspora Studies, Graphic Studies, and Literature and Human Rights

Books authored/edited

1. Life Writing Studies: A Bibliography. Life Writing Monograph Series, Institute of English University of Kerala, funded by UGC New Research Activity –Innovation Project, 2017. [ISBN: 978-93-5279-696-0]
2. Politics of Life Writing: A Study of Mahatma Gandhi’s Select English Biographies, Zorba Books, Gurgaon, 2016. [ISBN: 978-81-93316-92-4]
3. Critical Musings: Essays on Literature and Culture. Green Books, Thrissur, 2016. [ISBN- 93-86120-82-8]
4. Autobiography of Jacob Ramavarman the Native Missionary. Bodhi Tree Books, Trivandrum, 2016. [ISBN- 978-81-932587-5-0]
5. Guest Editor, Samyukta Journal of Women’s Studies special issue on Life Writing

Select projects completed

1. Remapping the Land: Displacement and Memory in Benyamin’s Aadujeevitham and Khadeeja Mumtaz’s Barsa, a book chapter to Studies in Indian Diaspora, Routledge (Forthcoming)
2. Race, Body and Textuality: Interrogating the Cultural Ethnography of Kappiri Muthappan. Contributed an article to Sahapedia – UNESCOto explore our cultural heritage to the project by Philip Jose
3. Tracks of Transit: Cultural Geography of Indian Railways in Journal of History and Society
4. Rethinking Panel Culture: Resistance and Subversion in Drawing the Line: Indian Women Fight Back’ in Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Vol 24, Issue 2, June 2017, Sage
5. Raising the Dead: Reframing Public Memory in T.V.Eachara Varier’s Memoir Memories of a Father’ in Literary Herald
6. Sculpting Lives: A Reading of the Life Narration of Adi Sankara at Kalady,’ with Philip Jose in Samyukta A Journal of Women’s Studies