Bio

Pujarinee Mitra is a PhD student at Texas A&M University, College Station. She has graduated with an MA in English from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (2020). She holds another MA in English from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India (2018) and her BA in English is also from Jadavpur University (2016). She serves as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the English Department, Texas A&M University. She has worked as a Summer Research Assistant at her current institution and Project Assistant at UW-Milwaukee. The questions that inform her research are: What is the function of feminist rage within anti-fascist resistance in India? How is this function represented in contemporary South Asian English literature and films?

Office Hours:

Wed. 12:00pm-3:00pm (either in-person or via Zoom; or by appointment)

Research Interests

• 20th and 21st Century Studies
• Gender and Sexuality Studies
• Race and Ethnicity Studies
• Transnational Literatures
• South Asian Literature and Cinema
• Postcolonial Studies
• Affect Theory

Accomplishments

Publications (peer-reviewed):

• “Women and Anti-fascist Resistance in India: Personal Documentation in Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”. Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, vol. 44, no. 2, Summer 2021, pp. 155-166.
• “The Vande Bharat Scam: Women, Social Standing, and Evacuation flights to India under COVID-19”. Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, vol. 44, no. 1, Spring 2021, pp. 83-95.
• “Malignant Care: Affects and Labor in Anita Nair’s Ladies Coupé (2001).” Humanities, vol. 12 (5), no. 110, September 2023, pp. 1-16.
• “Shaheen Bagh (2021): Gender, Affects, and Ita Mehrotra’s Graphic Narrative of Protest”. Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, vol. 7 (1), no. 9, Spring 2023, pp. 1-15.

Conference presentations (selected):

• (Forthcoming) “The ‘Disabling’ Acts of Care: Challenges to Masculinities in the Domestic Space,” Modern Language Association (MLA); January 2023; San Francisco, USA.
• (Forthcoming) “Rage Mobilization through Deception: Urban Affects in Made in Heaven Season 1,” National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA); November 2022; Minneapolis, USA.
• (Forthcoming) “The Ugly Feelings in Women’s Labour: Questioning Tradition Through Spatial Affects in The Great Indian Kitchen,” Annual Conference on South Asia; October 2022; Madison, USA.
• “The Graphic Narrative of Protest and Shaheen Bagh”, North East Modern Language Association (NeMLA); March 2022; Baltimore, USA.
• (Forthcoming) “Women and Anti-fascist Resistance in India: Personal Documentation in Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”, Annual Conference on South Asia; October 2021; Madison, USA.
• “Patriotic Genre, Fear, and Appropriation in Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se”, North East Modern Language Association (NeMLA); March 2021; Philadelphia, USA.
• “Women of Shaheen Bagh: Care as a method of Anti-fascist Resistance”, Modern Language Association (MLA); January 2021; Toronto, Canada.
• “Resisting Foucault’s Heterotopic Model of the Ship: A reading of Ibis and the Women in Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies”, Midwest Modern Language Association (MMLA); November 2019; Chicago, USA.
• “Reading the train compartment for women as a ‘safehouse’ in Anita Nair’s Ladies’ Coupe”, Midwest Modern Language Association (MMLA); November 2019; Chicago, USA.
• “Of the Artistry in Zoya Akhtar’s Made in Heaven”, Annual Conference on South Asia; October 2019; Madison, USA.
  

Awards:

• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor’s Graduate Student Award (2018-2019)
  

Other Publications

Public writing

“Guilty Pleasures and Hidden Misogyny in Sonam Kapoor’s Aisha and SRK’s Kal Ho Naa Ho,” Film Companion, December 4, 2020.

“Emotional Repression and the Home in Aami Ashbo Phirey”, Film Companion, December 1, 2020.

“The Healer in Dear Zindagi: Jehangir Khan or Shahrukh Khan?” Film Companion, November 7, 2020.

“Masculinities and Shahrukh Khan”, Film Companion, November 3, 2020.

“Revisiting Om Shanti Om: Bollywood’s Parasocial Relationships and Social Hierarchy”, Film Companion, September 5, 2020.

“Vande Bharat Mission: My Experience from New York to New Delhi,” Live Wire, July 22, 2020.

Pedagogical resources

“Phrases and Clauses,” Strategies, Skills and Models for Student Success in Writing and Reading Comprehension, Texas A&M University Libraries.

Fiction/Poetry

Short Stories:

“Mezbaan” (Her Campus, October 3, 2021); “The Wife” (Her Campus, October 25, 2021), “The Stained Papers” (Her Campus, November 21, 2021), “Mourning” (Her Campus, December 5, 2021)

Poetry:

“Mother-tongues” (Her Campus, December 19, 2021); “Dear Rizwan” (Pavements, April 27, 2023), “Fish and Rice” (Last Leaves Magazine Issue 7, October 31, 2023)