Professor Suman Gupta

Professional biography

My research interests are divided between modern and contemporary literature in English, cultural studies and political philosophy.

I have led the following international projects with grants from a number of funding bodies, including the British Academy, British Council, Leverhulme Trust, AHRC, Ferguson Trust: (1) Globalization, Identity Politics and Social Conflict (GIPSC) Project, 2002-2006, in collaboration with colleagues and partner institutions in India, Nigeria, China, Morocco, Iran, Bulgaria and the UK. (2) As Joint Director of the Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies, 2006-2008, I coordinated projects on contemporary Indian English publishing with a research group from Delhi University and input from the Independent Publishers Group, Delhi; and on the Nigerian moving picture industry with a research group from the University of Lagos. (3) English Studies in Non-Anglophone Contexts: East Europe, 2007-2010, in collaboration with colleagues from three Bulgarian and four Romanian universities. (4) With Professor Richard Allen, Prospects for English Studies: India and Britain Compared, 2011-2013, which involved working closely with colleagues from three universities in Delhi. (5) Principal Coordinator for a collaborative project funded by the Leverhulme Trust, Framing Financial Crisis and Protest: NW and SE Europe, 2014-2016, with partners in Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, Ireland and the UK. (6) With Professor Fabio Akcelrud Durão, Entrepreneurial Literary Research, 2016-2017, a Newton Grant funded collaboration between the Open University and the State University of Campinas, Brazil. (6) PI for an AHRC Network project on Analysing Political Catchwords, 2023-2025, with partners in AOU Jordan; Sofia and Plovdiv Universities, Bulgaria; Nicosia University, Cyprus.     

Scholarships and visiting positions: UGC Junior Research Fellow, Delhi (1989-1990); Rhodes Scholar, Oxford (1990-1993); Knopf Fellow, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin TX (2000); Leverhulme Fellow (2001); Charter Fellow, Wolfson College Oxford (2001-2002); Adjunct Professor, Institute of North American and European Studies, University of Tehran (2007-2010); Visiting Professorial Fellow, Institute of World Literature, Beijing University (2007-2010); Visiting Fellow, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge (2011); Visiting Fellow, University of Delhi (2011); Visiting Professor, Institute of Language and Literature, The State University of Campinas, Brazil (2012); Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Roehampton University (2011-2017, 2020-2023). I have delivered over 80 keynote and open lectures in fourteen countries.

Main Publications

Authored Books:

1. Co-authored (50% contribution) with Peter H.Tu. The Practical Philosophy of AI-Assistants: An Engineering-Humanities Conversation. (World Scientific Europe, 2023)
   [The book is presented as a formal conversation between an AI engineer, Peter, and a humanities researcher, Suman. The argument considers ground rules for designing a personal AI Assistant, i.e. an AI system that could act as a friend, consultant and confidante for every individual and be integrated in everyday life. These ground rules pertain to four areas of AI development: recognition and identification, communication, explanation, and civility.] 
2. Political Catchphrases and Contemporary History: A Critique of New Normals (Oxford University Press, 2022)
   [An historical account of the period 2001-2020 is presented by focusing on the shifting connotations of certain political catchphrases and words. These allow for a linked-up narrative covering areas such as politics and policy, business and investing, austerity and inequality, identity, climate change, crowd protests, flexible working and online education. Key junctures are 9/11, the 2002 dot-com crash and the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the Occupy movements of 2011-2012, China’s economic policy from 2014 onwards, and the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. Half the book is devoted to the unusually pervasive usage of the catchphrase ‘new normal’. Chapters are also given to ‘we are the 99%’ and the catchwords ‘austerity’ and ‘resilience’.]
3. Co-authored (30% contribution) with  Richard Allen, Maitrayee Basu, Fabio Akcelrud Durão, Ayan-Yue Gupta, Milena Katsarska, Sebastian Schuller, John Seed, Peter H. Tu, Social Analysis and the COVID-19 Crisis: A Collective Journal (Routledge 2020).
   [This book is a collective journal of the COVID-19 pandemic. With first-hand accounts of the pandemic as it unfolded, it explores the social and the political through the lens of the outbreak. Featuring contributors located in India, the USA, Brazil, the UK, Germany, and Bulgaria, the book presents us with simultaneous, multiple histories of our time. The volume documents the beginning of social distancing and lockdown measures adopted by countries around the world and analyses how these bore upon prevailing social conditions in specific locations. It presents the authors’ personal observations in a lucid conversational style as they reflect on themes such as the reorganization of political debates and issues, the experience of the marginalized, theodicy, government policy responses, and shifts into digital space under lockdown, all of these under an overarching narrative of the healthcare and economic crisis facing the world.]
4. Digital India and the Poor: Policy, Technology and Society (Routledge India, 2020)
   [The phrase ‘Digital India’ here refers to an aspiration for progressive social development through technological means, particularly post-2000. Within that broad context, this study explores the ways in which poor people and the condition of being poor are discussed, represented and purposively used in public discourses. This area is addressed by turn from a top-down perspective, in relation to initiatives bearing upon the population generally, and from an on-the-ground perspective, taking in intimate spaces and accounts of lived observations and experiences. For the former, education technology experiments in Indian ‘slums’ and a series of governmental ‘financial inclusion’ initiatives (including PMJDY, Aadhaar and demonetisation) are analysed; for the latter, the status of domestic workers, restructuring of domestic work and the place of technology therein are examined.]
5. Co-authored (50% contribution) with Peter H. Tu. What is Artificial Intelligence? Conversation between an AI Engineer and a Humanities Researcher (World Scientific Europe, 2020)
   [This book engages with the title question by putting two standpoints into conversation. These are different in their disciplinary groundings – i.e. technology and the humanities -- and also in their approaches – i.e. applied and conceptual. The two standpoints are those of the two authors. Peter is an AI engineer: his approach to the question is in terms of the functional composition of what is understood as AI (how to make it work). Suman is a humanities researcher: his approach is in terms of how AI is currently understood and spoken of in different walks of life (what do people mean when they say ‘AI’) – including in academic and policy circles.]  
6. Co-authored (70% contribution) with Milena Katsarska, Theodoros Spyros, Mike Hajimichael. Usurping Suicide: The Political Resonances of Individual Death (London: Zed, 2017) 
   [Looking closely at specific acts of suicide that bore wider political resonance, such as Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation during regime change in Tunisia to Dimitris Christoulas’s public shooting at a time of increased governmental austerity in Greece, this book focuses on the reception these acts have produced rather than the individual motivations. Exploring how a singular act can become endowed with collective significance, Usurping Suicide will be of interest to readers concerned with the intersection of public interests and private actions and the power of media in the framing of these events.]
7. Philology and Global English Studies: Retracings (London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2015)
   [This book retraces the formation of modern English Studies by departing from philological scholarship along two lines: in terms of institutional histories and in terms of the separation of literary criticism and linguistics.  It is argued that the full potential of the discipline’s global scope and pluralistic formation can only be realized by departing further from philology rather than returning to it – and that this is possible only by engaging with philology rather than by forgetting it. Part 1 outlines the complexities and coherent features of philological scholarship. Part 2 examines historical accounts of the discipline’s moves away from philology in several institutional contexts (UK, USA, India, post-1990 EU). Part 3 explores the gradual bifurcation of English linguistics and literary studies, departing concurrently from philology and from each other.]
8. Co-authored (40% contribution) with Richard Allen, Subarno Chattarji, Supriya Chaudhuri, Reconsidering English Studies in Indian Higher Education (London: Routledge, 2015)
   [This book examines the status of English Studies in India, aspirations pinned on the subject by students, teachers, policy-makers and society in general, and how these are addressed at the higher education level.]
9. Consumable Texts in Contemporary India: Uncultured Books and Bibliographical Sociology (London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2015)
   [Production and reception patterns in five areas of contemporary Indian publishing are analysed: commercial fiction in English, vernacular pulp fiction in English translation, Hitler’s Mein Kampf, group discussion guidebooks, and public sector “value education” publications. The methodology is that of bibliographical sociology, which is conceptualised and discussed.]
10. Contemporary Literature: The Basics (London: Routledge, 2012).
    [‘Contemporary Literature’ is among the most popular areas of literary study but it can be a difficult one to define. This book equips readers with the necessary tools to take an analytical and systematic approach to contemporary texts. ]
11. Imagining Iraq: Literature in English and the Invasion of Iraq (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011)
    [An enormous number of literary texts engaged with the build-up towards, undertaking of and aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, 2003-2005. This book both provides a survey of such texts and presents a particular critical perspective on them. The idea here is to examine how certain literary texts appeared within and 'spoke' to a specific socio-political context, not merely to reckon with that context but to understand the condition of contemporary literature generally.]
12. Globalization and Literature (Cambridge: Polity, 2009)
    [Presents an overview of the relationship between globalization studies and literature and literary studies, and the bearing that they have on each other. It is argued that, while literature has registered globalization processes in relevant ways, there has been a missed articulation between globalization studies and literary studies.]
13. Social Constructionist Identity Politics and Literary Studies (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007).
    [A critique of social constructionist identity politics, and an examination of the institutionalization of identity politics in literary studies.]
14. The Theory and Reality of Democracy: A Case Study in Iraq (London and New York: Continuum, 2006).
    [Examines concepts of democracy in the international/transnational domain from a politically realist perspective, and makes a case study of the rhetoric and policies surrounding the invasion and occupation of Iraq (September 2002-June 2004).]
15. Re-Reading Harry Potter (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2003).
    [A study of mass market literature, with the Harry Potter books and films, and the so-called Harry Potter “phenomenon”, as a case study.]
    Re-Reading Harry Potter: Second Edition (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2009)
    [With four additional chapters, covering a world-to-text approach, reception in Bulgaria and China, and fanfiction.]
16. The Replication of Violence: Thoughts on International Terrorism after 11 September 2001 (London and Sterling VA: Pluto, 2002).
    [A close analysis of British and US media reportage on “international terrorism” in the three months after 11 September 2001.]
17. Corporate Capitalism and Political Philosophy (London and Sterling VA: Pluto, 2002).
    [A study of the place of managerialism in contemporary corporate capitalist organization, and its evasive philosophical underpinnings.]
18. Marxism, History, and Intellectuals: Toward a Reconceptualized Transformative Socialism (Madison NJ and London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000).
    [Traces the development of constructions of "intellectuals" in socialist political philosophy, and offers a modest proposal for future socialist transformation.]
19. V.S.Naipaul: Writers and Their Work (Plymouth: Northcote House and British Council, 1999; now available from Liverpool University Press).
    [A critical introduction to all Naipaul’s published works till 1999, with a particular emphasis on their political underpinnings.]
20. Two Texts and I: Disciplines of Knowledge and the Literary Subject (Madison NJ and London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999).
    [An examination of the relationship between disciplines of knowledge and textual stylistics.]

Edited Volumes:

1. With Satnam Virdee, Race and Crisis (London: Routledge, 2018). 
2. With Tao Papaioannou, Media Representations of Anti-austerity Protests in the EU (London: Routledge, 2017).
3. With Alexander Search, Fabio Akcelrud Durão, Terrence McDonough. Entrepreneurial Literary Theory: A Debate on Research and the Future of Academia (London: Shot in the Dark, 2017).
4. With Jernej Habjan and Hrvoje Tutek, Academic Labour, Unemployment and Global Higher Education: Neoliberal Policies of Funding and Management (London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2016).
5. With Milena Katsarska. English Studies On This Side: Post-2007 Reckonings (Plovdiv: University of Plovdiv Press, 2010).
6. With Tapan Basu and Subarno Chattarji. Globalization in India: Contents and Discontents (New Delhi: Pearson Education, 2009).
7. With Tope Omoniyi, The Cultures of Economic Migration: International Perspectives (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007; now available from Routledge), pp.350.
8. With David Johnson, A Twentieth Century Literature Reader: Texts and Debates (London: Routledge, 2005), 296pp.
9. With Richard Brown, Aestheticism and Modernism: Debating Twentieth Century Literature (London: Routledge, 2005), 432pp.
10. With Duro Oni, Tope Omoniyi, Efurosibina Adegbija and Segun Awonusi, Nigeria in the Age of Globalization (Lagos: CBAAC, 2004), pp.516.
11. With Tapan Basu and Subarno Chattarji, India in the Age of Globalization (New Delhi: NMML, 2003), pp.416.

Guest Edited Journal Issues:

1. With Subarno Chattarji, Postcolonial Studies, Vol.22 No.1. Special Issue: Indian Student Protests and the Nationalist-Neoliberal Nexus (Routledge and IPCS, 2019).  
2. With Satnam Virdee, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Special Issue: Race and Crisis. Vol.41 Issue 10 (Routledge, Summer 2018).
3. With Fabio Akcelrud Durão, Wasafiri, Special Issue: The Brazilian Contemporary. Vol.30 No.2 (London: Routledge, Summer 2015).
4. With Ana-Karina Schneider, Special Issue: English Studies in Romania, The American, British and Canadian Studies Journal (Academic Anglophone Society of Romania, University of Sibiu), Volume 14, June 2010.
5. Wasafiri, Special China Issue (London: Routledge, 2008), Issue 55

Over 80 journal papers, book chapters, reviews.

Since 1988 I have taught regularly on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in modern and contemporary literature and literary and cultural theory.

At the Open University, I was the production module team chair and presentation module team chair for the Level Three BA module A300: Twentieth Century Literature: Contexts and Debates; and production module team chair for A335: Literature in Transition: 1800 to the present. I was also production deputy course team chair for the English MA programme, A815 and A816. I have written material for several other modules.

In August 2007, Professor Duro Oni (University of Lagos) and I jointly organized a Nigerian Video Film Festival with support from, and venues in, the Nigerian High Commission and the British Film Institute in London. Recently I have delivered public lectures at the Tate Modern, London; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Wiels Centre for Contemporary Art, Brussels; and the India International Centre, Delhi.