Amitava Kumar, Associate Professor, English, Penn. State University, USA Professor Kumar received his Ph.D. in Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature from the University of Minnesota in 1993. Currently, he teaches in the English department at Pennsylvania State University. In addition, he is the editor of Class Issues (New York University Press, 1997), Poetics/Politics (St Martin’s Press, 1999), and World Bank Literature (forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press). He serves on the editorial board of Rethinking Marxism, Minnesota Review, and Cultural Logic; he also co-edits the online journal, Politics and Culture. Kumar’s writings have appeared in several anthologies and the following journals: Critical Inquiry, Cultural Studies, Critical Quarterly, College Literature, Race and Class, American Quarterly, Rethinking Marxism, Minnesota Review, Journal of Advanced


 

Composition, Amerasia Journal, and Modern Fiction Studies. He has been awarded fellowships from the NEH, Yale University, SUNY-Stony Brook, and Dartmouth College.
Kumar’s non-fiction and poetry have recently appeared in The Nation, Harper’s, The New Statesman, Transition, Toronto Review, Civil Lines, Biblio, Outlook, Frontline, India Today, The Hindu, Himal, Herald, The Friday Times, The Times of India, and other publications. He is the author of a book of poems No Tears for the NRI (Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 1996). In addition to being a literary columnist for Tehelka.com, Kumar is also the script-writer and narrator of the prize-winning documentary, Pure Chutney (1997). He has been awarded a Barach Fellowship at the Wesleyan Writers Festival, and an award from the South Asian Journalists Association. His short-story “The Monkey’s Suicide” was chosen by Khushwant Singh as the best short-story of the year for the Asian Age Award. His new short-story “Indian Restaurant” has been published recently in Civil Lines 5. Kumar is also the editor of a volume of writing by Indian expatriate writers, Away (forthcoming from Penguin-India). He is the author, most recently, of Passport Photos (University of California Press, 2000) and is currently working on a book project entitled Bombay-London-New York.
While in residence at the Center, Professor Kumar will focus on a project that he has been developing. India and Pakistan fought their last war around the Himalayan region of Kargil. But this war was only a return to an earlier conflict. The partition of British India in 1947 – leading to the creation of independent India and Pakistan that had led to the largest migration in human history. The exodus went on for months, even years, across the hastily drawn borders. At least a million died in riots. In his proposed book-project, “Husband of a Fanatic,” the exodus of 1947 serves as the point of departure for a journey into the written literature as well as the psychology of relations between the two warring neighbors.