Prem Poddar is an Indian academic who serves as Vice Chancellor of Darjeeling Hills University since March 2023. He has taught in India, Britain, and in two universities in Denmark both as associate professor in Postcolonial Studies and Professor in Cultural Encounters.

Early life

Prem Poddar grew up in Kalimpong and studied in Kalimpong College for his BA (Honours) and completed his MA in North Bengal University. His first PhD was from India. His second PhD is from University of Sussex, U.K. His first job was at St Joseph's College and later at Darjeeling Government College. Like many from the region of his birth, he speaks Hindi, Nepali, Bangla and English.

Career

He is an Honorary Senior Fellow at University of Manchester in U.K. He was Professor in Cultural Encounters at Rosklide University in Denmark for a decade. Prior to that, he was an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Fellow in Berlin, AHRC Fellow at Southampton University and Carlsberg Senior Fellow at Cambridge University. He was a visiting professor at Fudan University in China, Confucius Senior Fellow in Shanghai, and visiting professor in Heidelberg University.

He is the author of many articles and books including Violent Civilities (2002), Postkolonial Contra-modernitet: Immigration, Identitet, Historie (2004), and Invented Futures: Fin de Siècle Fantasies (2016) which have been revised and updated in Chinese and published as Cengjing de weilai 曾经的未来 (Imaged Futures) (2023). He has also edited Translating Nations (2000); A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Thought (Columbia University Press/Edinburgh University Press, 2005/2008), Empire and After: Englishness in Postcolonial Perspective (Berghahn Books, 2007/2010); A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures — Continental Europe and its Empires (Edinburgh University Press, 2008/2011), and Gorkhas Imagined (2009). His forthcoming series of articles and a monograph (China in India: Himalayan Kalimpong) from Cambridge University Press investigate IndiaChina relations through the optic of borders in the eastern Himalayas. His continuing interest in ‘state’ and ‘nation’ as conceptual contexts for analysing cultural representation forms the centre of his forthcoming work on the Politics of the Passport.

References