Newcastle University

Background

I was born in Rome and lived in Boston, Rome, and Oxford, until I came to Newcastle to take up my current job. 

Roles and Responsibilities

Convenor of MA in Modern and Contemporary Studies (Semester 2, 2011-12)

Qualifications

Laurea (University of Rome "La Sapienza")

M.Phil. (Oxford)

D.Phil. (Oxford) 

Previous Positions

Lecturer in Commonwealth Literature and Literary Theory, University of Cambridge

Lector in Italian, University of Oxford

Memberships

Postcolonial Studies Association

IIAS (International Institute of Asian Studies)

Languages

English, Italian, French

Research Interests

Indian/South Asian literature in English, theories and narratives of violence, anti-colonial and postcolonial cinema, Italian colonialism, postcolonial literature, and postcolonial theory.

Other Expertise

Literary translations between English and Italian

Current Work

I am currently working on a research project which looks at the cultural history of Italian colonialism. I examine the public discourses and perceptions arising from specific moments of colonial/anti-colonial engagement: the invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini in 1935, discourses surrounding Italian trusteeship in Somalia, and intellectuals' reactions to the Algerian war of 1954-62. A key focus of my project is the complex relationship between the European/Italian left and anti-colonial movements. 

Postgraduate Supervision

Tom Langley, "Postcolonizing Italy, Italianizing the Postcolonial", AHRC funded

Alex Adams, "The Representation of Political Torture in Post-9/11 Writing and Film", AHRC funded

Rebecca Gill, "Intergenerational Autobiography, Trauma and the Relational Self: Maternal Life Stories in Minority Women’s Writing"

Craig Hankin, "‘The State of Exception’: Theorising the Camp from Auschwitz to the Postcolonial", AHRC funded

Esteem Indicators

UK reviews editor, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies

Member of the AHRC Peer Review College

Manuscript reviewer, Routledge, Palgrave, Broadview

Funding

Principal Investigator: international research network funded by Leverhulme Trust, on "Postcolonial Translation: The Case of South Asia". Value of grant: £65,072. Length of project: 2008-2011.

Grant from the Faculty Research Fund of £2,945 to develop my project on "A Postcolonial Europe?Towards a History of Anti-colonialism in Europe".

British Academy overseas conference grant of £700 to present a paper at the annual conference of the American Comparative Literature Association in Puebla, Mexico (April 2007).

Projects

• Postcolonial Translation: The Case of South Asia
  Project Leader(s): Dr Neelam Srivastava and Dr Baidik Bhattacharya
  A 3-year collaborative project between Newcastle and other UK and Indian universities, on theories and practices of translation in 5 Indian languages: Bengali, English, Hindi, Malayalam, and Tamil.

Undergraduate Teaching

Fictions of Migration, Stage 2 module, Semester 2, 2011-12

Postgraduate Teaching

Violence and the Postcolonial Imagination (MA module for the MA in Modern and Contemporary Studies)

• Srivastava N. Reading After Terror: The Reluctant Fundamentalist and First-World Allegory. In: Benwell, B., Procter, J., Robinson, G, ed. Postcolonial Audiences: Readers, Viewers, and Reception. London: Routledge, 2012. In Press.
• Bhattacharya B, Srivastava N, ed. The Postcolonial Gramsci. New York: Routledge, 2011.
• Srivastava N. Secularism in the Postcolonial Indian Novel: National and Cosmopolitan Narratives in English. London: Routledge, 2007.
• Srivastava N. Reading Fury as an Imperial Fiction. In: Ghosh, R, ed. Romancing Theory, Riding Interpretation: (In)fusion Approach, Salman Rushdie. New York: Peter Lang, 2012, pp.199-212.
• Srivastava N. Anthologizing the Nation: Literature Anthologies and the Idea of India. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 2010, 46(2), 151-163.
• Srivastava N. Towards a Critique of Colonial Violence: Fanon, Gandhi and the Restoration of Agency. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 2010, 46(3-4), 303-319.
• Srivastava N, O'Leary A. "Violence and the Wretched: The Cinema of Gillo Pontecorvo". The Italianist 2009, 29(2), 249-264.
• Srivastava N. Bollywood as National(ist) Cinema: Violence, Patriotism and the National-Popular in Rang de Basanti. Third Text 2009, 23(6), 703-716.
• Srivastava N. "Postcolonial Translation: The Case of South Asia". Anglistica: An Interdisciplinary Journal 2008, 12(2), 63-75.
• Srivastava N. Decolonizing the Self: Gandhian Non-Violence and Fanonian Violence as Comparative “Ethics of Resistance” in Kanthapura and The Battle of Algiers. In: Shackleton, M, ed. Diasporic Theory and Literature: Where Now?. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008, pp.86-103.
• Srivastava, N. “Pidgin English or Pigeon Indian?” Babus and Babuisms in colonial and postcolonial fiction. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 2007, 43(1), 55-64.
• Srivastava N. Anti-colonialism and the Italian Left: Resistances to the Fascist Invasion of Ethiopia. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 2006, 8(3), 413-429.
• Srivastava N, De Donno F. Colonial and postcolonial Italy. Interventions 2006, 8(3), 371-379.
• Srivastava N. Anti-colonial violence and the 'dictatorship of the truth' in the films of Gillo Pontecorvo, an interview. Interventions 2005, 7(1), 97-106.
• Srivastava N. Free Trade. In: Poddar P; Johnson D, ed. A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures in English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005, pp.154-155.
• Srivastava N. Interview with the Italian Film Director Gillo Pontecorvo. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 2005, 7(1), 106-117.
• Srivastava N. Languages of the nation in Salman Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children' and Vikram Seth's A 'Suitable Boy'. ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature 2005, 36(1-2), 207-231.
• Srivastava N. Multinationals. In: Poddar P; Johnson D, ed. A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures in English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005, pp.327-328.
• Srivastava N. Nehru, Jawaharlal. In: Poddar P; Johnson D, ed. A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures in English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005, pp.356-357.
• Srivastava N. Secularism in Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. In: GJV Prasad, ed. Vikram Seth: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. Delhi: Pencraft International, 2004, pp.87-106.
• Srivastava N. Fictions of Nationhood in Amitav Ghosh's 'The Shadow Lines'. In: Bose, B, ed. Amitav Ghosh: Critical Perspectives. New Delhi, India: Pencraft International, 2003.
• Srivastava N. "The Invention of India in Vikram Seth's 'A Suitable Boy'. International Institute of Asian Studies Newsletter 2003, (32), 21.
• Srivastava N. "The Multi-Lingual Context of Indian Fiction in English". Anglistica, special issue on Texts in Transit 2001, 5(1), 105-123.
• Srivastava N. Amitav Ghosh’s Ethnographic Fictions: Intertextual Links between In An Antique Land and His Doctoral Thesis. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 2001, 36(2), 45-64.