Abhijit Gupta
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A profile
From the archives of India Today
Abhijit Gupta: Reader, Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Pet subjects
The Victorian novel, science fiction, modernist poetry and graphic novels.
Loves
To play corridor cricket with his students once the college hours are over.
Mantra for change
Encourages students to be themselves and not clones of their teachers.
Abhijit Gupta wrote a thesis on 19th century women novelists in 1996 for his doctoral degree, but has since moved out completely from that line of research. Over the past few years, he has been studying printing in 19th century Bengal, and also has been working in what may broadly be called digital humanities.
His teaching is a mix of the old and the new: Victorian and 20th century literature on the one hand and new genres like graphic novels, sciencefiction and modernist poetry on the other. The department of English at the university is the only one in the country which teaches a half-course on graphic novels to all undergraduates. At various times, he has taught courses on literature and censorship, the French Revolution, R.L. Stevenson and Herman Melville.
Outside the campus, he works with students in running an NGO which tries to generate employment opportunities for disadvantaged youth in three districts of rural Bengal. Their work consists of researching and designing training courses, raising funds, administering training and making regular visits to the project sites.
-by Abhijit Dasgupta
