B.A. State University of New York at Buffalo (1992) ; M.A., Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2004)

I did my graduate work at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. There I was exposed to a thoroughly interdisciplinary environment. We were encouraged to collaborate with faculty and students from a host of other disciplines. My work, though primarily literature-based, was shaped by disciplines such as comparative literature, history, anthropology, cultural studies and area studies. The bulk of my training was in the field of colonial/postcolonial studies, with special focus on British Colonialism in South Asia.

As much of my research has involved the study of colonialism and its aftermaths, I have a keen interest in following the varied and uneven consequences of globalization throughout the world. Much of my teaching relates to the politics and poetics of culture in a transnational era, especially as they relate to the dominant role of the United States in the present world-system. In most of my courses, in addition to the study of literature, I include literary and cultural theory, visual studies, popular culture and extensive historical context.

While at RIT, I have pursued a keen interest in new media, with particular emphasis on wikis. Wikis are software programs that allow users to create and edit webpages with only their browser. I have been a member of RIT's Lab for Social Computing since its inception in 2004. My current research involves using literary and cultural theory to better understand how wikis influence the larger society. Presently, I am preparing a book about how wikis challenge established notions of authorship, authority and expertise.

Teaching Philosophy
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Books:

• Negotiating the Modern: Orientalism and “Indianness” in the Anglophone World, New York: Routledge, 2007.

Articles:

• "Jagannath’s Saligram: On Bruno Latour and Literary Critique After Postcoloniality," Postmodern Culture. with Evan Selinger, Volume 18, Number 2, January 2008.

• “‘Indianness’ and Contemporary Cosmopolitan Fictions: Of Bookers and Spice and Everything Nice,” "Neither East Nor West: Postcolonial Essays on Literature, Culture and Religion''. English Studies Series. Ed. Kerstin W. Shands. Stockholm, Sweden: Södertörns Högskola Press, 2008.

• “Reviewing the Author-function in the Age of Wikipedia” with Erhardt Graeff, ''Imitation, Originality and Plagiarism'], Eds. Martha Vicinius and Caroline Eisner. Ann Arbor: digitalculturebooks, University of Michigan Press, 2008.

• “Orientalism and Religion in the Romantic Period: Rammohan Ray’s Vedanta(s)”, ed. Michael J. Franklin. London: Routledge, 2006.

• "Cultural Studies at RIT/USA: Of Visual Culture and Pedagogical Interventions" in "International Journal of the Humanities", Volume One, 2003, eds. Tom Nairn and Mary Kalantzis, Australia: Common Ground Publishing, 2005.

• *“The New Criticism,” ''The New Dictionary of the History of Ideas''. New York: Charles Scribner’s and Sons, 2005.

• "The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true." Ecclesiastes via Baudrillard
• "In modernity, politics takes much of its character from the temporality of the headline, not the archive." Michael Warner