Sritama Chatterjee

I am a literary and cultural theorist of the Indian Ocean World.  In my current position as a writing tutor for the McNair Scholars’ Program, I work with first generation and limited income students to support them in their writing journey. In my research, I engage with disciplinary questions in Postcolonial Studies, Indian Ocean Studies, Environmental and Digital Humanities and Gender Studies.

My current project on “Ordinary Environments and Aesthetics in Contemporary Indian Ocean Archipelagic Writing” takes an oceanic and archipelagic approach to the study of postcolonial and world literatures. Adopting a comparativist approach, I argue that the lens of the archipelagic restructures postcolonial and world literature by foregrounding literary narratives that cannot be submerged into a single form of capitalism or empire. I show that a feminist and decolonial perspective of the environment emerging out of the Indian ocean archipelagos is central to envisioning subtle forms of environmental justice that cannot be captured in the language of climate crisis.

Spanning South Asia, Indian Ocean and East African archipelagos, I revise how literary histories of environmentalism have been told in three distinctive ecologies: the tidal and borders waters of Sundarbans; the prison waters of Andamans and the plantation waters of Chagos. My scholarship on Indian Ocean shipbreaking literatures, conceptual provocations in environmental and digital humanities and invitations on feminist pedagogy have been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Verge: Study in Global Asias, South Asian Review, Reviews in Digital Humanities, and Feminist Pedagogy. I am currently in the early stages of conceiving a second research project on anticolonial environmentalisms in the Indian Ocean world.

My interest in writing, gender and literature pedagogies have taken various forms over the years. My philosophy that humanities work in the present world needs to be collaborative in nature has not only guided my interest in public humanities but has also led to exciting collaborations. I have edited a cluster on “Water Pedagogies: From the Academy and Beyond” published by NICHE Canada which brings together a set of eleven articles from scholars and activists reflecting on water pedagogy.  Bringing together my strengths in feminist pedagogy and instructional development, I have worked as a curriculum developer for a course on Transgender Studies, a co-curator for a reproductive justice exhibit, and a faculty research development intern. My fundamental goal in these multiple roles has been to mobilize the power of narratives to show how the humanities are transformative and can enact change.

From September 2019 to April 2020, I was a monthly columnist for the GradHacker blog of Inside Higher ed. My writings on environmental movements, water, and pedagogy have been published in Edge Effects, Arcadiana, MLA Graduate Blog, and Environmental History Now. If you want to read more about my frequent musings about writing and research, please head over to my Medium Blog.

I also spend a lot of time refining my artistry through practicing a dance form called Whacking, that emerged in the gay clubs of Los Angeles in late 1960s and early 1970s. I am also trained in dancing on 4-inch stiletto heels.