Devaleena Kundu

Devaleena completed her doctoral research in English Literature from The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad. Her academic training lies at the cross roads of English Literature and Death Studies and in her research she explores subjects pertaining to immortality, the undead, and cultural criminology. Her doctoral thesis was on arrested immortality and the larger socio-cultural repercussions of corporeal deathlessness. Devaleena is particularly interested in the field of popular cultural representations of crime, gore, and gothic horror. In 2016, she received the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship to undertake part of her doctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley. During this period, she was also a visiting scholar at the university’s Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society (CSTMS). Apart from her academic interests, which she admits can be morbid, she is a travel enthusiast and likes to experiment with acrylic on canvas.

She has been affiliated with UPES since 2020. She is the programme lead for the undergraduate programme in Literature. Prior to joining UPES, she worked as an Assistant Professor at Christ University, Bangalore.

Death Studies | Gothic Horror | Victorian Literature | Popular Culture

Devaleena has published on subjects pertaining to death and dead bodies, crime, gender, and popular culture. The manner in which the trope of death intersects and interacts with the domain of gender is something that she finds deeply intriguing.

Devaleena’s objective as a teacher is to encourage interdisciplinary learning among students, and to help develop their critical thinking. She encourages her students to think of the ‘text’ as an entry point to deliberate on and discuss questions of historical, socio-cultural, and political import. She consciously designs activities that would help facilitate analytical and experiential learning amongst students.

At the School of Liberal Studies and Media, Devaleena teaches courses pertaining to Literature and Cultural Studies. ‘Contemporary Forms of Narratives’, ‘Mystery, Madness, and Monstrosity: An Introduction to Gothic Studies’, and ‘Death and the Spirit of the Macabre’ are some of the courses that she offers. Earlier she also taught life skill papers such as ‘Learning How to Learn’, ‘Living Conversations’, and ‘Leadership and Teamwork’. She has also handled courses on cultural studies, popular culture, and literary theory and criticism when teaching at Christ University, Bangalore.

Devaleena is a recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship (2016-17) during which she was affiliated with the Department of History, University of California, Berkeley. She was also a rank holder in her undergraduate programme at St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Devaleena actively engages in research, writing, and publishing. Her work has been published in several journals and edited volumes. She is currently co-editing the focus issue entitled ‘Dead Women and Gendered Death in Visual Culture’ for MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture. Her latest paper entitled, “Negotiating Transgression, Deathlessness, and Senescence in Mary Shelley’s ‘The Mortal Immortal’” (2023) was published in Victoriographies 13.2.

devaleena.kundu@ddn.upes.ac.in