Dr. Shilpa Bhat is Assistant Professor at Ahmedabad University. She has a Phd from Gujarat University (dissertation guided at Gujarat and Toronto Universities); an MPhil from Central University Hyderabad and an MA from Mysore University. Her areas of interest are South Asian Literature, Diaspora and Postcolonial theories, Canadian Studies and Children’s Literature. She was a Visiting Fellow, Oxford University, UK (2019-20); Visiting Fellow, McGill University, Montreal, Canada (2017); International Visitor, York University, Canada (2015); Commonwealth Fellow, Trinity College, University of Toronto, Canada (2011-12); and has visited University of Western Ontario (2011) and Korea University, South Korea (PANCS Grant, 2011) for research.

She has published articles in reputed journals like Social Identities (Routledge, Taylor and Francis); Green Letters (Routledge, Taylor and Francis); Culture and Religion (Routledge, Taylor and Francis); Sikh Formations (Routledge, Taylor and Francis) and Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change (Routledge, Taylor and Francis). Her book length publications include Indians in Victorian Children’s Narratives: Animalizing the 'Native', 1830-1930 (monograph, Rowman and Littlefield, US, 2017); Diaspora and Homing in South Asian Women's Writing:Beyond Trishanku, Rowman and Littlefield, US, 2018 (edited anthology); Women Writers of the South Asian Diaspora: Interpreting Gender, Texts and Contexts Rawat Publishers, Jaipur, 2019 (Co-edited anthology); and Diasporic Inquiries into South Asian Women’s Narratives: Alien Domiciles (edited anthology, Rowman and Littlefield, US, 2020).

(https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1330-8130)

Key Publications/Recent

Books

Diasporic Inquiries into South Asian Women’s Narratives:Alien Domiciles. ( Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, Maryland, US, 2020).

Women Writers of the South Asian Diaspora: Interpreting Gender, Texts and Contexts.  (Coedited Anthology. Jaipur: Rawat Publishers, India,  2020).

Diaspora and Homing in South Asian Women's Writing:Beyond Trishanku (Edited Anthology, Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, Maryland, US, 2018).

Indians in Victorian Children’s Narratives: Animalizing the 'Native', 1830-1930 ( Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, Maryland, US, 2017).

Journal Articles

“Sita-centric Revisionism in Sita’s Ramayana, Androcentric Encoding and Conceptualizing the Diasporic abla nari”. Routledge (Taylor and Francis). Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. Abingdon, United Kingdom. 2021. 1-19.

“Delhi, diaspora and religious consciousness: heritage and palimpsest architecture in M. G. Vassanji’s A Place Within: Rediscovering India, Culture and Religion. Routledge (Taylor and Francis). Abingdon, United Kingdom. October 2020. 1-18. 

‘Fifteen minutes of fame’: The “good Indian”, Diasporic Identities and the American Media Representation in Thrity Umrigar’s If Today Be Sweet. Social Identities. Routledge (Taylor and Francis). Abingdon, United Kingdom. 2020. 1-17.

““Aamchi Mumbai” in Rohinton Mistry’s Fiction: Urban Ecology, Filth and Foliage”. Green Letters. Abingdon, United Kingdom. Routledge (Taylor and Francis). 1-16. 2020.

"Military/ Warrior Legacy, the Taj and Sikh-Canadian Diaspora in Breakaway". Sikh Formations. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge (Taylor and Francis). 2020. 1-17. 

"Ambulocetus Versus Trishanku: ‘Nowhere’ Space, Diaspora and Genealogical Tourism through Paleontology and Hindu Mythology". Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change. London: UK, Routledge Informa Ltd (Taylor and Francis). 2019. 1-17.

"e-Diaspora, the Great War and Sikh Military Migration to Canada: Commemorating Buckam Singh". Sikh Formations. Abingdon UK: Routledge (Taylor and Francis). 2019. 1-16. 

"Hackeneying Hybridity?: Fending Off 'Foreigness', Khoja Community and Hybridization in The Magic of Saida". Culture and Religion. Vol: 20.Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge. (Taylor and Francis). 2019. 1-18. 

“Sikh Diasporic Negotiations: Indian and Canadian History in Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?”. Sikh Formations. Vol. 14. No. 1. Abingdon, UK: Routledge (Taylor and Francis). 2018. 55-70.

Chapters in Edited Anthologies  

“Maritime Links, Imperialism and Diaspora in the Ibis Trilogy”. Eastern and Western Synergies and Imaginations. Editor: Katrine K Wong. Boston, Leiden: Brill. 56-78, 2020.

“Diaspora and Renewable Energy in Manubhai Madhvani's Autobiography Tide of Fortune”. Discourses on Sustainability: Climate Change, Clean Energy, and Justice. Editors: Elena V Shabliy, Dmitry Kurochkin and Martha J Crawford. London, New York et al: Springer International Publishing, imprint Palgrave Macmillan.207-219.

"Colonialism and Racialization in The Madwoman in the Attic, Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre”. Women’s Human Rights in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture.  Elena V. Shabliy, Dmitry Kurochkin, and Gloria Y.A. Ayee. Eds. Maryland, US: Lexington Books: Rowman and Littlefield. 147-161, 2020.

"Afropolitanism and the Afro-Asian Diaspora in M. G. Vassanji's And Home Was Kariakoo". Afropolitan Literature as World Literature. Ed. James Hodapp. Bloomsbury Press: New York, 2020. 57-70. 

"Historical Ripple Effects in Indo-Canadian Narratives: The 1984 Sikh Carnage in M. G. Vassanji and Anita Rau Badami". (E)razed Chapter: Remembering the Tales of Mourning Carnage'84. Ed. Ishmeet Saini. Orient-Blackswan, India. Forthcoming.

""The Return of the Native": Homecoming 'Returnee' Migrant in M.G. Vassanji's Narratives". 2018. The Postcolonial Subject in Transit: Migration, Borders and Subjectivity in African Diaspora Literature. Ed. Fongang Delphine. Lanham, US: Rowman and Littlefield-Lexington. 111-123.

“Inhabiting Trishanku in Canada: Threshold Experience in the Oeuvre of M. G. Vassanji”. In-Between: Liminal Spaces in Canadian Culture and Literature. (Canadiana Series). Ed. Stefan L Brandt. Frankfurt, Oxford et al.: Peter Lang. 2017. 47-59.

Scholarly Book Review (Refereed)

Book Review of Commerce with the Universe: Africa, India and the Afrasian Imagination (Columbia University Press, 2013), by Gaurav Desai. South Asian Review: Journal of the South Asian Literary Association. Volume 38, Issue 3.  UK: Routledge, Taylor and Francis. 2017.

Courses Offered:

• Academic Reading and Writing
• Indian Diaspora and Global Economies
• World Literature
• Indian Literature in Translation
• Communication for Management
• Effective Reading and Comprehension

 (Recent Presentations/Talks/ Workshop Participation)

Seminar Talk at Oxford University, United Kingdom; December 3, 2019. Title: “Reading Diaspora Narratives: Conceptualizing Third Space Metaphorically”.

Participated in “Bibliotherapy workshop” Oxford University, United Kingdom, November 26, 2019.

Participated in "Image and Thought Workshop", Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University, United Kingdom, November 21, 2019.

Participated in “Artefacts of a Written World” workshop organized by The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities (TORCH), Oxford University, United Kingdom, November 14, 2019.

Participated in “Decolonising colonial ports and global history: rethinking archives of power” workshop organized and funded by The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities (TORCH), Oxford University, United Kingdom, November 9, 2019.

Talk at the The Oxford Critical Theory Network workshop/study day organized and funded by The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities (TORCH), Oxford University, United Kingdom, October 14, 2019. Title: "Reading the ‘Nowhere Space’ through Metaphors, Diaspora and Tourist Theories".

Seminar talk on M. G. Vassanji's fiction, York University, Canada; December 27, 2015.

Presented paper in the multidisciplinary conference organised by the University of Western Ontario, Canada, on May 12, 2012. Title of the Paper: “Pushing Political Regimes to the Brink of Precipice: The Anna Hazare Movement in India”. http://revolutionandrecovery.wordpress.com/conference-program/

Presented paper in the International Conference organised by Pacific-Asia Network of Canadian Studies on October 6, 2011, in Korea University, Seoul, South Korea. Title of the Paper: “Contemporary India through Generalist Narratives: “Eyes” and Perspectives”.