Recognized for current book project ‘Mothering India’.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Delaware State University professor Dr. Susmita Roye has been announced as a recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Award for Faculty.
The NEH is an independent government institution that was founded in 1965, which has grown into one of the largest funders of the arts and humanities in the US. Its major tenets are to “strengthen teaching and learning in schools and colleges, facilitate research and original scholarship, provide opportunities for lifelong learning, preserve and provide access to cultural and educational resources, [and] strengthen the institutional base of the humanities.”
Roye is being recognized by the NEH for a book she is currently writing, on the subject of “Women Writers and the Portrayal of Women in British Indian Fiction.” Tentatively titled “Mothering India,” the book will be the sixth publication Roye has had a hand in. She was co-editor of last year’s “The Male Empire under the Female Gaze: The British Raj and the Memsahib,” and has written other published essays dealing with female writers during India’s occupation by the British.
Her research interests include “Women’s Writing, World Literature, Gender and Imperialism, Anglophone Literatures of the World, Post/Colonial Literatures, Orientalism, Race and Ethnic Studies, and Cultural Studies.” By winning the award, she will receive grant money to help further develop her research, which will go towards completing the publication of “Mothering India.”
Roye, who has been on the faculty at Delaware State University since 2011, was one of eight applicants selected out of a total of 101. She holds an M.Phil. in English from the University of Calcutta, and a Ph.D. in English from the UK’s University of Bristol. She currently teaches two levels of World Literature, along with a class entitled “Men and Women of Classical Letters.”
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com