Home:
2505, 6th Ave
Grinnell, IA 50112
Office:
English Department
Grinnell College
315 Mears Cottage
Grinnell, IA 50112
Phone: 641-236-9689 (Home)
e-mail: kapilas@grinnell.edu
Ph.D. in English, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (August 1996)
M.Phil. in English, University of Delhi, Delhi, India (January 1990)
M.A. in English, University of Delhi, Delhi, India (August 1987)
B.A. in English, University of Delhi, Delhi, India (August 1985) [Honours]
"Phantom Daughters : Figurations of Romance in Nineteenth-Century British
India."
Dissertation Committee: Biodun Jeyifo (Chair), Dorothy Mermin, Laura Brown,
Paul Sawyer, Harry Shaw.
Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Cornell University, 1995.
the postcolonial novel; colonial history; postcolonial theory; theories of narrative; feminist theory, the Victorian novel
"The Domestic Novel Goes Native: Bithia Mary Croker's Anglo-India," forthcoming in Nineteenth-Century Contexts.
Book Review [on recent Partition literature]. Interventions 1.2 (1999): 312-316.
"Educating Seeta: The Erotics and Politics of Pedagogy in the Colonial Romance." Victorian Studies (Winter 1998) 41.2: 211-24
"The Other." Dictionary entry in Feminist Literary Theory: A Dictionary, Garland Publishing, New York, 1997. 296-297.
"The Poverty of Theory," and "An Interview with Aijaz Ahmad," The Bookpress, April 1993. 7-13
"Bibis and Begums: Company Affairs in Colonial India." MLA Conference, San Diego, Dec 28, 2003.
"'I am a budmash. All governments put me in jail': the secular outlaw in the fiction of Khushwant Singh and Saadat Hasan Manto." "Siting Secularism," Oberlin College, April 19-21, 2002.
"Disrupting Genealogies: Sealy's Trotter-nama and the critique of Focault," INCS, George Mason University, April 11-14, 2002.
"The Gender of Good Rule: Queen Victoria and the Royal Widows," The Victorian World:
"Britain, the Empire, and the United States in the 19th Century," University of California, Los Angeles, October 25-27, 2001
"Indira, India, and the limits of biography," Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 18-21, 2001.
"Pedagogy and Postcolonial Studies," Postcolonial Studies Symposium, Kenyon College, April 1, 2001
Panel Discussant, "Speaking in Public: Narratives of Shame and Honor among Women in South Asia," South Asian WomenÕs Conference, Los Angeles, May 6-7, 2000.
"Suicide in Partition Literature: The Fiction of Khushwant Singh and Saadat Hasan Manto," Narrative, Atlanta, April 6-9, 2000.
"Desperately Seeking Sufiya: The Question of Genre in Rushdie's Shame," "9th Postcolonial and Commonwealth Studies Conference," Feb 24-26, 2000.
"Educating Seeta: The Colonial Romance in Nineteenth-Century British India," Invited talk, South Asia Program, Cornell University, September 23, 1996.
"Theory and the Construction of a Project," Annual Literature Club Conference, Cornell University, April 11-12, 1996.
"Policing the Boundaries of the Home: the Colonial State as Paterfamilias ," Annual South Asian Studies Conference, University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 20-22, 1995.
"The Good Orientalist and the Native Woman: Reading the Historical Unconscious of Philip Meadows Taylor's Seeta," Psychoanalysis and Postcolonialism: Nation, Identity, Self, George Washington University, October 12-14, 1995.
"Culture as Critique: Is There an Academy in This text?," National Asian-American Arts Conference, New York, December 18, 1993.
"Theorizing the 'Self' in History and Psycholanalysis," History and Theory: Disciplines and their Consequences, Cornell University, May 1, 1993.
Faculty Development Grant, Kenyon College, Summer 2001
Visiting Fellow, Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers University, 2000-2001
Faculty Development Grant, Kenyon College, Summer 1999.
Teaching Initiative Grant, Kenyon College, Summer 1999.
Henry Faulkenau Award for academic service, English department, Cornell University, July 1994.
Graduate School Summer Fellowship for research at the India Office Library,
Cornell University, May 1994.
Graduate School Summer Fellowship for research at the India Office Library and the Cambridge South Asia Archive, Cornell University, May 1993.
Junior Research Fellowship, University Grants Commission, New Delhi, India, 1990-91.
Kohli Memorial Best M.Phil. Student Award, Delhi University, Delhi, India, 1989-90.
Assistant Professor, Grinnell College
"Introduction to Literature and Language: Travel Narratives" (Spring 2003)
"Postcolonial Studies Seminar: Imagined Communities"
"Feminist Literary Theory"
"Introduction to Literature and Language: Travel Narratives " (Fall 2002)
"The Empire Writes Back"
Assistant Professor, Kenyon College
"Travel Narratives" (Fall 2001)
"Introduction to Postcolonial Studies: The Empire Writes Back"
"Introduction to Postcolonial Studies: The Empire Writes Back" (Spring 2000)
"Princes and Pariahs: 'Other' Victorian Encounters"
"Literatures of Fantasy"
Independent Study on Salman Rushdie
"Travel Narratives" (Fall 1999)
"Victorian Poetry and Prose: Culture High and Low"
"India 1947: Literature of the Partition"
"Literatures of Fantasy" (Spring 1999)
"Introduction to Postcolonial Studies: The Empire Writes Back"
"Imagined Communities: 'Tribes' in Literature"
"Travel Narratives" (Fall 1998)
"Princes and Pariahs: 'Other' Victorian Encounters"
Lecturer, Cornell University, J.S. Knight Freshman Writing Program
"A Quest for Tribes: Nations and Communities" (Spring 1998)
"The Reading of Fiction" (Spring 1997)
"The Personal Essay" (Fall 1997)
"The Reading of Fiction"
"Travel Narratives" (Spring 1996)
"Literatures of Fantasy" (Fall 1996)
"Writing about Film"
Graduate Instructor, Cornell University, J.S. Knight Freshman Writing Program
"Women and Writing" (Fall 1993)
"Travel Narratives"
"Woman/Native/Other?" (Spring 1992)
"Literatures of Fantasy" (Fall 1992 and Fall 1991)
Teaching Assistant, Cornell University, English Department
"Readings in English and American Literature" (1990-91)
Lecturer, Miranda House, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
Fiction, poetry and drama for English majors (1987-90)
Member, Senior Examination Committee, English Department, Kenyon College, 2001-2002
Member, Committee on Academic Standards, Kenyon College, Fall 2001
Member, School-College Articulation Program (SCAP), Kenyon College, 1999-2000
Member, Curricular Policy Committee, Kenyon College, 1999-2000
Member, Departmental Search Committee, Kenyon College, 1999-2000
Faculty Advisor, Student Group ASIA, Kenyon College, 1999.
Founder-Member, South Asian Women's Group, Cornell University, 1993.
Graduate Representative, Graduate Policy and Curricular Committee, English Department, Cornell University, 1992-93.
Graduate Representative, English Department Faculty Search Committee for a specialist in African-American Literature, Cornell University, 1992.
Member, Cultural Studies Committee, English Department, Cornell University, Spring 1991.
Faculty Seminar Director, Miranda House, University of Delhi, Delhi, India, 1989-90.
From Professors Biodun Jeyifo, Dorothy Mermin, Laura Brown, Harry Shaw, and Paul Sawyer, Cornell University, and Professor Jim Carson, Chair, Department of English, Kenyon College.