Vaibhav Parel
Doctoral Student in Literature - Vaibhav’s thesis is entitled ‘The Scene of the Crime: Nationhood and the Postcolonial Contemporary in South Asian Diasporic Crime Fiction’.
Research Project Title:
The Scene of the Crime: Nationhood and the Postcolonial Contemporary in South Asian Diasporic Crime Fiction.
Supervisors:
Prof Neelam Srivastava, Dr Stacy Gillis, Prof Andrew Pepper + Dr Madeline Clements
Contact Details:
Email: v.parel2@newcastle.ac.uk
Brief Outline of Research Project:
In this project I explore Anglophone diasporic crime fiction written by authors of Indian descent who are based in the Global North. I argue that this fiction offers a double lens: firstly, it allows us to investigate how the uneven terrain of the nation-state, race, class, gender and caste in this contemporary global form is negotiated transnationally; and secondly, it pushes for a reassessment of the relationship of diasporic fiction with the shifting terrain of postcolonial Indian culture and society. I examine how this body of work challenges the paradigmatic frame of the nation and nationhood, and responds to questions of diasporic belonging and representation.
Research Activities
Publications
Articles
Parel, Vaibhav Iype. “Framing Selves: Home, Gender and Politics in the Poetry of Imtiaz Dharker”. ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, vol. 53, no. 4 (2022), pp. 151-176.
___. “The White Knight’s ‘inventions’: Creativity and ‘invention’ in Through the Looking-Glass”. Libri & Liberi: Journal of Research on Children’s Literature and Culture, vol. 9, no. 1 (2020), pp. 25-36.
___. “Arundhati Roy.” Indian Writing In English Online, 03 July 2023, https://indianwritinginenglish.uohyd.ac.in/arundhati-roy-vaibhav-iype-parel/
Book Reviews
- Rev. of Susheila Nasta and Mark U. Stein (eds), The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing (Cambridge UP, 2020). In ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, vol. 53, nos. 1-2 (2022), pp. 317-322.
- Rev. of Akshya Saxena, Vernacular English: Reading the Anglophone in Postcolonial India (Princeton UP, 2022). In Journal of Postcolonial Writing. Published online: 10 Oct 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2022.2127538
Awards
AHRC Northern Bridge PhD Studentship (2023-2026)
Sisters-in-Crime Academic Grant (2023)
Research Groups
Newcastle Postcolonial Research Group (NPRG)
Memberships
Crime Fiction Network, UK