Core Faculty
- Anjali Nerlekar
- Associate Professor and Chair, AMESALL
- Email: nerlekar@amesall.rutgers.edu
- Phone: 848-445-4305
- Office hours: By appointment
- Room #: 6160
- Office address: AB west wing, 15 Seminary Place, College Avenue Campus
- About:
Anjali Nerlekar has an academic career that spans India, Bahrain and the United States. Her research interests include multilingual Indian modernisms; modern Marathi literature; Indian English literature; Indo-Caribbean literature; world literatures; translation studies; Caribbean and postcolonial Studies; Indian print culture; Indian visual studies; archipelagic studies.
Through a bilingual and materialist reading of the poetry by Marathi/English poet Arun Kolatkar, her book, Bombay Modern: Arun Kolatkar and Bilingual Literary Culture (Northwestern University Press, 2016; Speaking Tiger Publications in 2017) shows how the genre of poetry emerged in Bombay in the post-60s (the sathottari period) as the instrument of radical protest and experimentation at the multiple junctures of regionalisms, new publishing spaces, national politics and transnationalisms. She has also co-edited a special double issue of Journal of Postcolonial Writing (“The Worlds of Bombay Poetry,” Spring 2017) and a special issue of South Asia: A Journal of South Asian Studies (“Postcolonial Archives” 2022).
Her other publications and research include work on multilingualism and literature, Indo-Caribbean and Postcolonial literature, and comparative Indian and postcolonial modernisms.
Her ongoing project (in collaboration with Dr. Bronwen Bledsoe at Cornell University South Asia collections) is the building of an archive of multilingual post-1960 Bombay poetry at Cornell University titled “The Bombay Poets Archive.” Her current projects include The Oxford Handbook of Modern Indian Literatures and a book project on mapping the multilingual borders of modern Marathi literature. She will be co-editor of Modernism/Modernity from 2023-2027.
- Articles/Publications:
Books/Journal Issues
Edited volume
2023 (forthcoming) The Oxford Handbook of Modern Indian Literatures (co-edited with Ulka Anjaria)
Special Issues of Journals
2022 a special issue of South Asia: A Journal of South Asian Studies on “Postcolonial Archives” (co-edited with Francesca Orsini).
2017 a special double issue, "The Worlds of Bombay Poetry" for Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Dec 2016 (co-edited with Laetitia Zecchini).
Monograph
(work in progress) In the Interstices of Region, Nation, World: Marathi Literature and its Multilingualisms (This book examines the bordering practices of translation and multilingualisms in the relation of Marathi writing to its regional and global others)
2016 Bombay Modern: Arun Kolatkar and Bilingual Literary Culture, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 2016. Rpt. Speaking Tiger, Delhi, 2017.
Archival Project
Ongoing archive collection (in collaboration with Dr. Bronwen Bledsoe): The Bombay Poets Archive, Rare Collections, Cornell University Libraries
Essays in Journals
2022 co-authored with Francesca Orsini, “Introduction,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies
(special issue on “Postcolonial Archives), 45.2 (2022): 211-219.
2022 “The Ecology of the Archive in Adil Jussawalla's ‘Date book’ for a Missing Novel,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies (special issue on “Postcolonial Archives): 45.2 (2022): 320-338.
2020, A note "The Pluralities of Global Asia" in the International Journal of Asian Studies.
2020 “The LCD of Language: The Sathottari Poetry of R. K. Joshi and Arun Kolatkar,” South Asia: A Journal of South Asian Studies, edited Laura Brueck, Hans Herder, Charu Gupta, and Shobhna Nijhawan, 43.5 (Oct 2020): pp. 943-969
2017 (co-authored) “Introduction to Special issue” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 53.1/2 (special issue, “The Worlds of Bombay Poetry”), pp 1-11.
2013 “The Cartography of the Local in Arun Kolatkar’s Poetry” Journal of Postcolonial Writing. 49.5 (2013): 609-623
2013 “The Rough Ground of Translation and Bilingual Writing in Arun Kolatkar's Jejuri.” Perspectives, Studies in Translatology 21.2 (2013): 226-240.
2004 (co-authored with Jill Zasadny)--“A Dinosaur in my Pocket: Lessons for Teaching at a Halfway House” Writing on the Edge, 14.1, 33-46.
2003 “Of Mothers Among Other Things: The Source of A.K.Ramanujan’s Poetry” Wasafiri 38 (Spring 2003), 49-53.
Book Chapters
2020 “The Insular and the Transnational Archipelagoes: The Indo-Caribbean in Samuel Selvon and Harold Sonny Ladoo” in Contemporary Archipelagic Thinking: Towards New Methodologies and Disciplinary Formations, Eds. Michelle Stephens and Yolanda Martinez-San Miguel (London; Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Press): pp. 403-422.
2017 “The City, Place, and Postcolonial Poetry.” The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Poetry. Ed. Jahan Ramazani. Cambridge (UK) and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. pp 195-208.
2016 “Little Magazines, Bilingualism and Bombay Poetry.” History of Indian Poetry in English. Ed. Rosinka Chaudhuri Cambridge University Press. 190-202.
2014 “Converting Past Time into Present Space: The Poetry of A. K. Ramanujan.” Marginalized: Indian Poetry in English. Ed. Smita Agarwal. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2014. 127-150.
2011 “Living Beadless in a Foreign Land: David Dabydeen's Poetry of Disappearance” Talking Words: New Essays on the Work of David Dabydeen. Ed. Lynn Macedo. University of West Indies Press, 2011, 15-29.
Interviews with Writers
2017 “The Man Who Wrote (Almost) Nothing: Ashok Shahane’s Deep Imprint on Indian Modernist literature,” The Caravan: A Journal of Politics and Literature, July 2017, 82-91.
2017 “We were unheeding in those days”: Ashok Shahane Talks to Anjali Nerlekar” 2017. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 53.1/2 (special issue, “The Worlds of Bombay Poetry”), pp. 108-118.
2017 “At Heart, I am a Village Person”: Bhalchandra Nemade talks to Anjali Nerlekar” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 53.1/2 (special issue, “The Worlds of Bombay Poetry”), pp. 119-130.
2017 ““I knew that I was a hybrid”: Kiran Nagarkar talks to Anjali Nerlekar.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 53.1/2 (special issue, “The Worlds of Bombay Poetry”), pp. 43-51.
2017 “‘Indian’ doesn’t exclude me”: Eunice de Souza talks to Anjali Nerlekar.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 53.1/2 (special issue, “The Worlds of Bombay Poetry”), pp. 247-254.
2017 “The Poetry “Is an Effort to Understand”: Gieve Patel Talks to Anjali Nerlekar” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 53.1/2 (special issue, “The Worlds of Bombay Poetry”), pp. 25-32.
2017 (co-authored) “Perhaps I’m happier being on the sidelines” Adil Jussawalla talks to Anjali Nerlekar and Laetitia Zecchini.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 53.1/2 (special issue, “The Worlds of Bombay Poetry”), pp 221-232.
2005 “Adarallu Idu [‘This, even in the midst of that’]: Girish Karnad talks about A.K. Ramanujan and his own Dramaturgy.” South Asian Review, (26:2), 2005, 217-36.
Translations
2022: Translation of Gauri Deshpande’s Marathi short story, “Paus Ala Motha (And it Poured),”
in The Greatest Marathi Stories Eever Told, ed. Ashutosh Potdar. New Delhi: Aleph Book Company, 2022.
2020 Select translations from Arun Kolatkar’s Bhijaki Vahi, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies (special issue on “Literary Sentiments”) 43 (5): 943-969.
2019 “Labour,” Translation of R. R. Borade’s Marathi story in Animalia Indica, Aleph Book Co., 2019, pp. 199-203.
2017 “Key document: Extracts from ‘Halli lekhakacha lekhakarao hoto to ka?’ [How does the writer become Mr Writer nowadays?] by Bhalchandra Nemade” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 53.1/2 (special issue, “The Worlds of Bombay Poetry”), pp. 131-133.
2017 “Key Document: Extracts from ‘Ajakalachya Marathi vangmayavar ksha kiran’ [An X-ray of today’s Marathi literature] by Ashok Shahane” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 53.1/2 (special issue, “The Worlds of Bombay Poetry”), pp. 134-137
Public Facing Work
2023 (forthcoming) “The Creative Life of Adil Jussawalla,” Video interview of the modern Indian poet in English, Adil Jussawalla, hosted at RU Libraries, public access.
2017 “The Man Who Wrote (Almost) Nothing: Ashok Shahane’s Deep Imprint on Indian Modernist literature,” The Caravan: A Journal of Politics and Literature, July 2017, 82-91.
2011 Rutgers open access archive: A Staged Reading of Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana at Rutgers University (in the presence of the playwright Girish Karnad) https://scholarship.libraries.rutgers.edu/esploro/outputs/conferencePresentation/99103155000290 4646#file-0
2011 Rutgers open access archive: Flowers, reading by Girish Karnad at Rutgers University https://scholarship.libraries.rutgers.edu/esploro/outputs/conferencePresentation/Flowers-- readings-by-Girish-Karnad/991031549997504646
2011 Rutgers open access MILA archive: Girish Karnad reads from his autobiography,“Family: A Collage” https://scholarship.libraries.rutgers.edu/esploro/outputs/conferencePresentation/ 99103154989610 4646
2009 2009 “The Unmonumental Chitre.” New Quest, 177-178 (July-December 2009), 31-33. Rpt. New Quest, 177-178 (July-December 2009), 31-33.
- Courses:
- Modern South Asian Studies: Postcolonial Identity and Indian Literature
- Resistance Literatures of Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia
- Caribbean Pluralities and Indo-Caribbean Literature
- The Cartographic Impulse (Honors)
- Literature and the City
- Crossroads: Classical Literatures of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia
- Introduction to Translation Studies
- Literature Across Borders: “Forbidden”
- Urban Encounters in Literature and Art (graduate course)
- Introduction to Literary Theory (graduate course)
