Susmita Roye, Ph.D.
Professor
Campus Address: Education and Humanities Building, Room 256
Email: sroye [at] desu.edu
Education
- Ph.D., English, University of Bristol, UK, 2011
- M.Phil., English, University of Calcutta, India, 2006
- M.A., English, University of Calcutta, India
Research Interests
Dr. Roye specializes in South Asian Women’s Writing, Indian Writing in English and Literature of British India. For her research, she has been a recipient of highly competitive national and international-level grants and fellowships like the NEH Award for Faculty in the USA, an Overseas Research Scholarship in the UK, and a Junior Research Fellowship in India. Her work has been widely published in her areas of expertise and research interests.
Her research frequently explores the intersection of gender, class, caste, religion, perceptions, traditions, imperialism and representation in the colonial/racial power dynamics of identity-formation and nation-building. In doing so, she attempts to retrieve lost stories and histories, especially by/of women authors and/or of underprivileged, marginalized characters who are easily silenced in as diverse settings as British India, Victorian England or colonial America.
Areas of Expertise
- Women’s Writing
- Gender and Imperialism
- Cultural Studies
- South Asian Studies
- Anglophone Literatures
- Post/Colonial Literatures
Consultation Experience
- Fulbright U.S. Student Program National Screening Committee — for United Kingdom
- Review panelist, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
- International Advisory Board, “South Asia Research” Journal
- Board of Directors, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA), USA, 2014-2020
- Steering Group of SAF, Inter-Disciplinary.Net, Oxford, UK, 2013-2015
Selected Publications
Books
- Roye, Susmita. Mothering India: Women’s Fiction in English shaping Cultural History, 1890-1947. Oxford University Press, 2020.
- Roye, Susmita, editor. Flora Annie Steel: A Critical Study of an Unconventional Memsahib. University of Alberta Press, 2017.
- Bashir, Hassan and Susmita Roye, editors. Experiencing Otherness: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. EBook. Oxford Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2015.
- Roye, Susmita and Rajeshwar Mittapalli, editors. The Male Empire under the Female Gaze: The British Raj and the Memsahib. Cambria Press, 2013.
Articles
- Roye, Susmita. “Teaching Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream”. MLA Teaching Volume: Teaching Anglophone South Asian Women’s Writings, edited by Deepika Bahri and Filippo Menozzi, Modern Language Association, 2021, pp. 213-221.
- Roye, Susmita. “Saint or Sinner? Suttee in the Depiction of Flora Annie Steel and Cornelia Sorabji.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 52, no. 2, June 2017, pp. 281-299.
- Roye, Susmita. “Politics of Sculpting the ‘New’ Indian Woman in Premchand’s Stories: Everything the Mem is not.” South Asia Research, vol. 36, no. 2, July 2016, pp. 229-240.
- Roye, Susmita. “Stereotyping the Feminist Lady Doctor in British India: A Study of the Literary Depictions by Colonial Women Writers.” Studies in the Humanities. Special issue: “Representations of, by, and for Women: The Gendered Politics of Art,” vol. 41, nos. 1-2, March 2015, pp. 120-142.
- Roye, Susmita. “Toni Morrison’s Disrupted Girls and their Disturbed Girlhoods: The Bluest Eye and A Mercy.” Callaloo, vol. 35, no. 1, Winter 2012, pp. 212-227.
- Roye, Susmita. “Lady Missionary in the Memsahib’s Depiction.” English Studies, vol. 92, no. 2, April 2011, pp. 193-209.