About The Presidency Literature Festival

Dr. Sumit Chakrabarti

Dr. Sumit Chakraborty is an English professor at Presidency University in Kolkata, India, with a focus on postcolonial and culture studies. His doctoral thesis and subsequent book examined the representational dynamics of Third-World intellectuals in the First-World academy. He has also analyzed the discipline of history and historiographical constructions through a postcolonial lens, with an emphasis on cultural praxes and agency.

In addition, Dr. Chakraborty has engaged with literature on forced migrations and utilized postmodern analytical tools to understand them within the framework of cosmopolitanism. His recent monograph explores the colonial keranis of Calcutta, and he is currently working on a monograph about Akshay Kumar Datta and Rationalism in nineteenth-century Bengal. Dr. Chakrabarti has received his PhD from Jadavpur University in Kolkata and has held Postdoctoral and Visiting Professor positions in Poland and the United States, respectively.

Dr. Mousumi Mandal

Dr. Mousumi Mandal is an Assistant Professor of English at Presidency University in Kolkata, with a background in researching the historical figure of East Bengali migrant working women in Post-Partition Calcutta. Her research interests center around gender, class, experience, and labor, particularly in relation to partition, refugee women, and laboring women. Dr. Mandal's M.Phil work focused on the folkloric traditions of the Sundarbans in West Bengal, with a detailed study of folklore, myth, performance, and popular religion. Her research interests also include popular culture, translation, and performance studies. Dr. Mandal has taught English Literature at various undergraduate colleges of the University of Delhi and at Ambedkar University, Delhi.

Dr. Sandip Kumar Mandal

Dr. Sandip Kumar Mandal is an Associate Professor of Bengali Literature at Presidency University, Kolkata, India. He completed his BA and MA from Presidency College, Kolkata, under the University of Calcutta, and went on to obtain a PhD from the same university on the subject of Jibanananda Das`s Views On Poetry in relation with Western Tradition. His current research interests are in the analysis of Medieval Bengali text on the subject of SIVAYAN KABYA by Rameswar Bhattacharya and its socio-political relevance to Bengali customs and beliefs. He has published seven books and more than thirty articles in reputed publication houses and journals in Kolkata on topics such as Poetry and Poetics, Novel, Old Bengali Texts, and Theory of Literature. He has also completed a Minor Research Project under University Grants Commission (UGC), Delhi, on Mongal Kabya and Bengali Novel. Prior to his appointment as an Associate Professor at Presidency University, he worked as an Assistant Professor at Jhargram Raj College and Maulana Azad College.

Dr. Anindya Gangopadhyay

Dr. Anindya Gangopadhyay is a Hindi professor at Presidency University in Kolkata with a strong interest in various aspects of human relations reflected in literature, particularly in Hindi literature. His area of doctoral research was focused on the psychology-based fictions of the renowned Hindi author Sacchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan Agneya. With a first-class degree in both B.A. (Hons.) and M.A. Hindi, Dr. Gangopadhyay has ample experience in teaching and research, having served as Head of the Department at Women's College in Kolkata for seven years. He has also published several articles in national and international journals and has a keen interest in the stream of consciousness and human psychology as reflected in literature.