Mariyam Ilyas Siddiqui

Mariyam Ilyas Siddiqui is one of the founding members of School for life and School of Liberal Studies and Media, UPES. She designed and led a life skill course titled ‘Learning How to Learn’ in her initial years of service. Her love and passion for teaching became her gateway into academia a few years back. Prior to that, she completed her Ph.D. in English Literature from Department of English, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in 2019. In her PhD research, she tried to look Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s notable works from a postcolonial lens. She worked on the Spanish to English translated works of the writer. In her current role, she is teaching courses on Postcolonial Literature, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Theorising Drama and American Literature.

In addition to her role as a faculty, she is also playing the role of a Cluster Head of an Urbanization Cluster at School of Liberal Studies and Media. In this role, she is leading a group of like-minded people who would identify issues pertaining to Urbanization and would eventually seek solutions to those issues.

Based on her relationship with students, she is also appointed as a Proctor for School of Liberal Studies and Media, wherein she tries to maintain discipline and healthy student engagement at school.

In addition to teaching, Mariyam has an immense love for theatre as an art form. Throughout her college life, she was associated with the dramatics societies of her college and university. She has performed and received praise for her performance from stalwarts of theatre such as Tom Alter and Naseeruddin Shah. She has also given a couple of theatre workshops to the students at School of Liberal Studies and Media.

Mariyam Ilyas Siddiqui started her academic career with UPES in 2020, after she completed her PhD in 2019. In the last few years of her work span at UPES, she has honed her teaching and research skills. In these years she has taught a variety of courses ranging from basic English language course, language labs, Human Rights, Life Skill courses like Learning How to Learn and Critical Thinking and Writing, literature-specific courses, such as Postcolonial Literature, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Classical Literature, Theorising Drama and American Literature.

In her doctoral thesis, Mariyam has tried to engage with Latin American literature in relation to Postcolonialism. She tried to analyse some of the notable works of Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez from the lens of postcolonial theory.

Her current research interest mainly lies in the field of science fiction and popular culture. She is passionate about science fiction and thus tries to engage critically with whatever she reads or watches of the genre.

Based on her experience as a student, she intends to offer her pool of knowledge and in return learn something herself. She believes that the role of an academic is not just to impart knowledge of what is written within the pages of a book, but also to offer a broader perspective on what one could become by truly understanding the meaning behind those words. She enters her classroom with only one aim, i.e. to share everything that she knows and understands about the subject. She tries to build a connect between the text and the real world. She believes everyone sitting in a classroom should leave the room with something new that they have learnt. A classroom should not merely be the four walls, but an open space, where students are eager to learn, and educators are eager to share their experience of learning something new.

She has taught life skill courses like Learning How to Learn, Critical Thinking and Writing and Living Conversations. Further, she has taught Humanities discipline specific courses like English Language Labs, Human Rights and Responsibilities, and literature discipline specific courses like Postcolonial Literature, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Classical Literature, American Literature and Theorising Drama.

She has presented her research work at various international conferences such as Indian Society for Theatre Research (ISTR), Northeast Modern Languages Association (NeMLA), The Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, and Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA).

She is currently a member of the prestigious associations like Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) and World Science Fiction Society. She has published her research articles in various journals of international and national repute.

mailto:msiddiqui@ddn.upes.ac.in