M.A., M.Phil Department of EnglishLoreto College, Kolkata
Email:
ritwika.roy92@gmail.com
Qualifications:
M.A., M.Phil
Administrative Experience:
Research Interests:
My primary area of research is children’s literature, and other areas of interest include mythology and folklore, visual arts and literature, Japanese literature, literature and psychology, race and representation in literature, silence theory, feminist theory, 19th century American children’s fiction, contemporary Indian children’s fiction in English, and 19th century British poetry and novelists.
Orientation / Refresher Courses:
Presentations:
Conference:
As Organiser:
18 – 19 March 2023: Co-organised Play and Playthings in South Asian Children’s Literature, a 2-day online Symposium organised by the Association for Children’s Literature in South Asia.
5 – 7 August 2022: Narratives of Criminality, Punishment and Social Justice in Children’s and Young Adult Literature, a 3 Day International Children’s & Young Adult Literature Conference organised by Jadavpur University, Department of English in collaboration with the Association for Children’s Literature in South Asia.
As Participant:
17 – 18 June 2025: Invited to present at the conference Decolonising Literary Childhoods: Rewriting Stories, Resisting Narratives at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.
9 – 14 June 2025: Will present paper titled “How much time is enough time?: Time, Trauma, and Settlerhood in Hannah Lalhlanpui’s When Blackbirds Fly and Postcard From The Lushai Brigade” at the Children’s Literature Association Conference.
27 – 28 February 2025: Presented paper tilted “Authenticity and Methodology in the study of Indian English Children’s Fiction” at the Jadavpur University Comparative Literature Graduate Student Conference.
4 – 8 November 2024: Presented paper titled “Endless Plateaus and Forever Skies”: Memory, Tradition, and Appropriation in Paro Anand’s Nomad’s Land at the YA Studies Association Conference 2024.
13 – 15 August 2024: Invited delegate to the Children’s Literature Research Consortium hosted by The University of Pittsburgh. Gave a presentation titled “Law, Youth and Infantilisation in Indian English Children’s Literature” and presented in workshops on translation and university programs on children’s literature studies.
27 – 29 July 2023: Participated in and moderated roundtable Cultural Exchange in South Asian Children’s Literature at the International Children’s Literature Symposium 2023 at Newcastle University.
30 October – 4 November 2022: Presented paper titled Mapping the Role of Social Media in Indian YA: A Case Study of Payal Dhar’s Slightly Burnt at the YA Studies Association Conference 2022.
28 May 2022: Presented paper titled Reclaiming Children’s Narratives: Children Writing for Children in Contemporary India at The Child & Book Conference 2022, University of Malta.
10 May 2022: Presented paper titled Justifying Taboo: Mental Health, Family and the Law in Contemporary Indian YA Fiction at the YA Studies Association Seminar Series 2022.
11 November 2021: Presented paper titled Infantilizing through Consumption: The Role of Silence in the Politics of Constructing Childhood as part of the ACLiSA panel at Children and Childhood: Imaginaries in Indian and Other Asian Literatures and Film, an international conference organised by Christ University.
11 September 2021: Presented paper titled Aru Shah and Hindu Mythology: An Analysis of Hybridity in Roshani Chokshi’s Pandava Quintet at the Annual Congress of International Board for Books for Youth, on the theme “Great Big World Through Children’s Books: National and Foreign Literature – Role, Value, Impact on Young Readers in Different Countries”, originally scheduled for September 2020, postponed to 2021, due to COVID-19 pandemic.
2 – 4 July 2021: Presented paper titled From Partition to Parsippany: Revolutionary Re-imaginings of Thakurmar Jhuli in Kiranmala and The Kingdom Beyond at Fresh from the Fight: Heroes, Tricksters, and Villains in Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture, organised by University of British Columbia iSchool.
3 – 7 May 2021: Presented paper titled “The secret is that the secret changes”: Sex and Taboo in India and Indian Young Adult Fiction at the “Let’s Talk About Sex in YA” conference, organised by the Centre for Research in Children’s Literature at Cambridge, University of Cambridge. Chaired panel on Desire on 7 May 2021.
February 2017: Presented paper titled Globalized Mowgli: Kipling’s The Jungle Book as a Cultural Confluence at the National Students’ Conference on ‘Cross-Cultural Encounters and Negotiations: Place, Space, Identity’, organized by the Centre of Advanced Study, Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.
December 2012: Presented paper titled “To be the child I should”: The Child’s Voice in Louisa May Alcott’s Poetry at the International Seminar on ‘Aspects of Modernity: American Women Poetry’ organised by the Department of English, Loreto College in collaboration with the American Center, Kolkata.
WORKSHOP PARTICIPATION:
As Organiser/Speaker:
2025 – present: Organiser of the ACLiSA Speaker Series.
28 June 2024: Gave a Guest Lecture on Children’s and Young Adult Literature in India for course on International Youth Literature at School of Information Sciences, San Jose State University at the invitation of Dr. Leah Phillips.
30 November 2023: Gave a talk on Indian Children’s Literature for a course on Critical Enquiry in the Children’s Literature, Media & Culture Master’s programme at the University of Glasgow at the invitation of Dr. Melanie Ramdarshan Bold.
27 October 2023: Gave a talk on Fantasy and Social Justice in Children’s and YA Literature at Global Speaker Series conducted by the University of Pittsburgh, Newcastle University, Ocean University, University of Antwerp and Catholic University of Chile’s Children’s Literature Consortium.
2 May 2023: Gave a Guest Lecture on Children’s and Young Adult Literature in India for course on International Youth Literature at School of Information Sciences, San Jose State University at the invitation of Dr. Leah Phillips.
1 December 2022: Gave a talk on Postcolonial Theory and Indian Children’s Literature for a course on Critical Enquiry in the Children’s Literature, Media & Culture Master’s programme at the University of Glasgow at the invitation of Dr. Melanie Ramdarshan Bold.
17 November 2022: YA Writing Workshop “Writing is Personal: Narratives in Young Adult Literature” at American Centre, Kolkata, organised by American Center and ACLiSA.
22 July 2022: Gave a short talk on Indian English YA Fiction at the Global YA Networking Event.
17 May 2021: Gave a Guest Lecture on Children’s and Young Adult Literature in India for course on International Youth Literature at School of Information Sciences, San Jose State University at the invitation of Dr. Leah Phillips.
Publications:
Journal Articles & Book Chapters:
To Reclaim or Resist? The Multiple and Idealised Childhoods of Popular Indian English Children’s Literature published in Literaturizing the Popular, edited by Amrita Chakraborty & Asijit Dutta, Avenal Press, March 2023. ISBN: 978-93-94744-36-3.
“The secret is that the secret changes”: Sex and Taboo in India and Indian Young Adult Fiction published in International Journal for Young Adult Fiction, Volume 3 Issue 1, 2022, pp 1–21. http://doi.org/10.24877/IJYAL.84.
Little Men and Women Brave the Bush: the Alcott Influence and the Missing Story in Ethel Turner’s Seven Little Australians published in Modern Research Studies, Volume 3 Issue 2 (June 2016), pp 441 - 459. ISSN 2349-2147.
“To be the child I should”: The Child’s Voice in Louisa May Alcott’s Poetry published in Aspects of Modernity: American Women’s Poetry. ed. Sukanya Dasgupta. Jadavpur University Press. 2014. ISBN 9788192752594
Digital Publications:
January 2025: Reference article on Paro Anand’s No Guns at My Son’s Funeral in The Literary Encyclopaedia.
August 2024: Review of Emily R. Aguiló-Pérez’s An American Icon in Puerto Rico: Barbie, Girlhood, and Colonialism at Play for Research in Diversity in Youth Literature Volume 6 Number 1
May 2024: Review article on Devika Rangachari’s Queen Series in Global Literatures in Libraries Initiative blog
February 2024: Reference article on Himanjali Sankar’s Talking of Muskaan in The Literary Encyclopaedia. Invited to contribute by editor Dainy Bernstein.
Invited to contribute to Round the Globe, a children’s literature project at the Department of English, University of Pittsburgh. https://roundtheglobe.omeka.net/exhibits
ANNOUNCEMENTS
