Avishek Ganguly is an interdisciplinary scholar who works at the intersection of translation, theater and performance, cultural studies, and contemporary literatures in English. His publications include Living Translation: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Seagull Books, 2022), co-edited with Emily Apter, Mauro Pala and Surya Parekh, and Performance and Translation in a Global Age(Cambridge University Press, 2023), co-edited with Kélina Gotman. He is currently working on a monograph on the cultural politics of “Global Englishes” and experimenting with a project at the interface of design and the humanities.
Ganguly has held visiting research fellowships at Freie Universität Berlin and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and taught at Columbia University, Bryant University and the University of Delhi. At RISD, he held the inaugural Global Faculty Fellowship and was awarded the Robert Turner Theatrical and Performance Design Grant most recently to teach a collaborative, immersive seminar-studio with Christopher Roberts titled Power, Pastness and Performances of Monumentality.
Ganguly believes that the interdisciplinary humanities should play a prominent role in shaping public life and policy conversations around contemporary social issues, and he continues to work with various cultural and nonprofit organizations in the area including the Wilbury Theatre Group and FringePVD: The Providence Fringe Festival. He was recently appointed to serve a three-year term as a commissioner on the Art in City Life Commission in Providence, RI.
Academic areas of interest
Ethics and politics of translation; theater and performance; contemporary literatures in English; postcolonialism and decolonization; cultural studies (especially contemporary urban musical cultures in India); sound studies; public humanities; the “long nineteen sixties”; Indian popular cinema.
Courses
Fall 2024 Courses
GAC 700G-01 - CRITICAL GLOBALISMS
LevelGraduate
UnitLiberal Arts
Subject Global Arts And Cultures
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
FormatSeminar
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
GAC 700G-01
CRITICAL GLOBALISMS
LevelGraduate
UnitLiberal Arts
Subject Global Arts And Cultures
PeriodFall 2024
Credits3
FormatSeminar
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2024-09-04 to 2024-12-11
Times: TH | 9:40 AM - 12:40 PMInstructor(s): Avishek GangulyLocation(s): Auditorium, Room 522Enrolled / Capacity: 15Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Introduces students to ways of thinking about arts and culture comparatively, through interrogation of the very terms global, "arts" and "culture." Critical Globalisms emphasizes the development of broad theoretical perspectives within which to situate specific research interests. A requirement in the first semester of the GAC MA degree, Critical Globalisms provides a common vocabulary and experience for all GAC MA students. The course will run as a seminar with weekly reading assignments, regular writing assignments, and in class discussion. This is a co-requisite course. Students must register for GAC-700G and GAC-701G.
Enrollment is limited to Global Arts and Cultures Students.
Major Requirement | MA Global Arts and Cultures
GAC 701G-01 - CRITICAL GLOBALISMS
LevelGraduate
UnitLiberal Arts
Subject Global Arts And Cultures
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
FormatSeminar
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
GAC 701G-01
CRITICAL GLOBALISMS
LevelGraduate
UnitLiberal Arts
Subject Global Arts And Cultures
PeriodFall 2024
Credits3
FormatSeminar
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2024-09-04 to 2024-12-11
Times: TH | 9:40 AM - 12:40 PMInstructor(s): Avishek GangulyLocation(s): Auditorium, Room 522Enrolled / Capacity: 15Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Provides an opportunity for independent research related to the discussions, topics, readings and other activities from GAC-700G. Students will begin to develop areas of focus in order to identify future electives and research topics leading toward the Master's Thesis.
This is a co-requisite course. Students must register for GAC-700G and GAC-701G.
Enrollment is limited to Global Arts and Cultures Students.
Major Requirement | MA Global Arts and Cultures
Spring 2025 Courses
LAS E799-01 - LAS OPEN SEMINAR
LevelUndergraduate
UnitLiterary Arts and Studies
Subject Literary Arts and Studies
Period Spring 2025
Credits 3
FormatSeminar
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
LAS E799-01
LAS OPEN SEMINAR
LevelUndergraduate
UnitLiterary Arts and Studies
Subject Literary Arts and Studies
PeriodSpring 2025
Credits3
FormatSeminar
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2025-02-13 to 2025-05-23
Times: W | 1:10 PM - 4:10 PMInstructor(s): Avishek GangulyLocation(s): College Building, Room 410Enrolled / Capacity: 15Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The LAS Open Seminar is devoted to the development of undergraduate and graduate degree projects that engage the discipline of literary arts and studies, and involves the writing of a longer, research-based project (thesis, artist's statement, creative work, etc). This engagement may take a variety of different forms, including a direct referencing or interaction with literary texts or issues; a focus on textuality and/or narrativity; a concern with research and the mechanics of writing a longer project. Therefore, as the course title indicates, the seminar has an open structure to accommodate our ability to address and foster each student's interests and concerns. As the semester progresses, we will move from a discussion of texts that introduce key concepts in the framing of interdisciplinary projects to group analyses and the workshopping of each student's project. In the first part of the semester, we will discuss a number of conceptual tenets that will ground our theorization of the artistic process, including issues of intentionality and audience; issues of translation and interdisciplinarity; and the relation of form to content. The second part of the semester will be organized and driven by group analyses of the degree and related written project of each class member.
