Sohomjit Ray is Assistant Professor of English. He teaches courses in South Asian and African literature, and gender and sexuality studies. His research interests include postcolonial and queer theory; translation; feminism; neoliberalism; and South Asian literature and public culture. He is currently finishing his book project The Spectacle and the Specter: Queer Representations in Neoliberal India, which analyzes the conditions of representing same-sex desire and queerness in neoliberal India after 1991. He has published in The Translator, South Asian Review, Wasafiri.
Degrees
Ph.D., Kent State University
M.A., University of Calcutta
Scholarship / Publications
Articles:
- Gendering the untranslatable in the world literary market: reading Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Shasti’ (1893) in translation.” The Translator. August 20, 2019.
- “Multilingual Reader, Translingual Reading: Unmaking the Anglonormativity of World Literature in Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies.” In Hybrid Englishes and the Challenges of and for Translation: Identity, Mobility and Language Change eds. Karen Bennett and Rita Queiroz de Barros, Routledge, 2019, pp. 73-91.
- “Legibility, Erasure, and Neoliberal Assimilation of Same-Sex Desire in Dostana.” South Asian Review, vol. 34, no. 3, 2013, pp. 159-174. Special Issue: Gender and Sexuality in South Asian Literature and Culture edited by Kanika Batra.
- “The Value of Beauty.” Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, no. 6, 2009, pp. 105-117.
Translations:
- Bharatiya Galpaguchchha (Indian folktales). English to Bengali. Translation of three children's folktales collected from different parts of India. Kolkata: Kreya Comics, 2008. 24 pages.
Other publications:
- Review of Sleeping on Jupiter, by Anuradha Roy and Consumable Texts in Contemporary India: Uncultured Books and Bibliographical Sociology, by Suman Gupta. Wasafiri vol. 3, no. 1, 2016, pp. 88-89.
- Review of Transforming Faith: The Story of Al-Huda and Islamic Revivalism among Pakistani Women, by Sadaf Ahmad. Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2011, pp.80-87.
- Review of In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, by Daniyal Mueenuddin. Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies, vol. 2, No. 1, 2010, pp. 90-94
Courses Taught
ENG 151: College Writing
ENH 206: Classics of Modern World Literature
INT/ WGS 203: Gender in the Contemporary World
ENL 290: Introduction to Literary Studies
ENL 307: African Literature
ENL 310: World Literature in Contexts
ENL 321: South Asian Literature
ENL/ DRA 358: World Drama Since 1800
ENL/ WGS 368: Queer Studies
ENL/ WGS 369: Gender and the Negotiation of Difference
ENL/ LNG 388: Major World Author (Rabindranath Tagore)