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Staff Profile

Dr Shalini Sengupta

Lecturer in Diasporic and/or Black British Literatures

  • Telephone: 0191 208 5660
Background


Background


I joined Newcastle University as a Lecturer after a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Vienna, where I worked on a project titled "Poetry Off the Page", jointly funded by the European Research Council and Austrian Start Fund). I earned my PhD from the University of Sussex, UK, where I was a Chancellor's Research Scholar between 2017 and 2021. In 2022, I was also a Visiting Scholar at Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University.



Awards/Recognitions



Ledbury Poetry Critic, Centre for New and International Writing, University of Liverpool and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)


Honourable Mention, Adam Weiler Doctoral Impact Award for Research Excellence, University of Sussex, 2021.


Research

Research Interests


I specialise in modern and contemporary British poetry; diasporic literatures; and Black British literatures.


My academic work over the last six years has been invested in interrogating canon formation and directing scholarly attention to writers who are removed from centres of political power and cultural hegemony.


My first monograph (in progress) reframes the the aesthetics and politics of difficulty in modern and contemporary poetry by looking at the work of three lesser-known British and diasporic writers. Its findings offer new routes into (published and unpublished) work by twentieth and twenty-first century women writers like Anna Mendelssohn, Fran Lock, Bhanu Kapil, and Anthony (Vahni) Capildeo. The book draws up a new theory of difficulty that disentangles the concept from its origins in white male authorship and re-conceives for the political present.


My postdoctoral work built upon my prior research by looking at contemporary poetry performance in the UK—particularly by Black British and British South-Asian writers and creatives—and establishing it as a recognised branch of historico-literary enquiry. 



I have published book chapters and journal articles in Modernism/modernity Print Plus; Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry; Presses Universitaires de La Méditerranée; Etudes Anglaise; and De Gruyter, among other places.


Alongside my academic work in traditional venues, I have also published reviews and creative-critical essays in Poetry London; Poetry Wales; Poetry Book Society; and Versopolis. I remain a regular reviewer for Poetry Book Society (founded by T.S. Eliot in 1953) and have been a Reviews Editor for the London-based (and online) magazine titled harana poetry jointly edited by Kostya Tsokalis and Romalyn Ante.



I have delivered talks on my ongoing research at numerous international conferences across the US and UK, including the MSA (Modernist Studies Association); MLA (Modern Languages Association); and NeMLA (NorthEast Modern Languages Association).



I look forward to hearing from prospective students and PGRs who are interested in working on any of the broad areas mentioned above.

Teaching

My pedagogy is led by the conviction that literary-historical research and methods can productively be brought to bear on some of the most pressing social questions of our time. At Newcastle University, I currently teach on the following modules in 2023:


  1. “Literatures of Decolonisation" (SEL2233) along with Prof. James Proctor (module leader) and Prof. Neelam Srivastava.
  2. Introduction to Literary Studies 1, SEL1003 (module leader: Dr. Robbie McLaughlan)
  3. Independent Research Project (SEL2210)


For the 2022/23 academic year, I am also currently supervising seven undergraduate dissertations on various aspects of modern and contemporary literature; Indian/South Asian literature; and Black British literature.



International Teaching Recognition


2021: Virtual Faculty Residency, Andrew W. Mellon funded Plant Humanities Initiative, Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University


I have guest lectured (virtually as well as in person) across universities in Britain, Scotland, and the United States.

Publications