New Books in Sociology Sourit Bhattacharya, "Postcolonialism Now: Literature, Reading, Decolonising" (Orient BlackSwan, 2024)
Feb 13, 2026
Sourit Bhattacharya, a Lecturer in global anglophone literatures at the University of Edinburgh, studies colonial and postcolonial writings. He discusses a new decolonial method of close, comparative reading. Conversations cover migration, ecology, trauma, minorities and futurity across novels, poetry, film and graphic novels. The talk links classroom practice to social movements and publishing realities.
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Childhood Roots Shaped Research Focus
- Sourit Bhattacharya describes growing up in Alipurduar and discovering his family's refugee origins through school names and stories.
- That provincial upbringing shaped his interest in migration, identity, and postcolonial questions.
Reading As A Political Practice
- Bhattacharya argues that postcolonialism is alive in everyday practices and institutions, not just history.
- He proposes reading as an interventionist practice that politicizes readers and links classroom work to public action.
Decolonizing As Ongoing Verb
- Bhattacharya differentiates post-colonial, decolonizing, and anti-colonial as related but distinct concepts.
- He treats decolonizing as an ongoing verb and anti-colonial movements as the active energy that sustains decolonization.
