Dickens Leonard | Humanities & Social Sciences

Dickens Leonard

Dickens Leonard
Assistant Professor
Literature
CV Summary: 

Dickens Leonard's educational background and research interests lie in English studies, comparative literature, film and cultural studies, translation, and the history of anti-caste thought. He is largely interested in critical humanities, in the intersection of these disciplines, as it paves the way towards a meaningful and transformatory pedagogy for Human Sciences.

Besides researching and teaching in this area, his current research explores anti-caste intellectual thought and comparative cultural studies in India, foregrounding the Tamil cosmopolis particularly through a critical caste studies framework. His publications generally explore how anti-caste intellectuals engaged with culture, language, literature, history, and religion through print in the context of colonialism in India; and further through contemporary cinema. He is also developing research on "community" especially on the interrelation between comparative aesthetics, ethics and politics.

He is trained in Tamil, English, and French; and is exposed to Telugu, Malayalam, and Hindi languages for more than a decade and half; and of course, he loves to learn more.

Researchers interested in anti-caste thought, literary, and cinematic cultures from different "linguistic" and/or "regional" (con)texts; either within the Indian and/or diaspora background with a focus on critical caste studies may send their detailed proposal to the official email id.

On Leave (Jan to May 2025): Visiting Fellow at Brandeis University <dlmraj[at]brandeis.edu>

Contact Information

Office: MS 604A
Humanities and Social Sciences
IIT Delhi, Hauz Khas
New Delhi: 110016

Phone: +91 11 2659-8746
Email: dleonardm[at]hss.iitd.ac.in

Research Areas

Anti-caste Thought and Community;

Cinema and Print Cultures;

Literature and Modernity;

Critical Caste and Dalit Studies.

Academic Background

2004–2007: BA, Department of English, Loyola College, University of Madras.

2007–2009: MA, Department of English, University of Hyderabad.

2009–2011: MPhil, Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad.

2011–2017: PhD, Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad.

2016-2017: DAAD Visiting-PhD Fellow, Center for Modern Indian Studies, University of Goettingen.

Employment History

July 2017–Dec 2020: Guest Faculty & Assistant Professor (Comp. Lit.) CCL, University of Hyderabad.

Dec 2020–Oct 2021: Assistant Professor (Cultural Studies) CSSSC, Kolkata.

Oct 2021–present: Assistant Professor (Literature) HSS, IIT Delhi.

Jan 2025–May 2025: Visiting Fellow (South Asian Studies) Brandeis University, Boston, USA.

Publications

JOURNAL ARTICLES

2024:

"Jigsaw of Dis-coloration: Anti-Caste Poetics and The Absent Color," CASTE A Global Journal on Social Exclusion (Brandeis University), Vol 5, No 3, Sep. Pp 358-370.

https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v5i3.2319

2023:

"Sarithiram as Interpretative Pedagogy: Iyothee Thass's Casteless Community and History," Critical Philosophy of Race (Penn State Univ. Press), Vol 11, No 1, Jan. Pp 94-119.

https://doi.org/10.5325/critphilrace.11.1.0094
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/887357

"Collective Sounds: Pa. Ranjith's Cinema, Gaana and Fusion Music," South Asian Popular Culture (Taylor and Francis), Vol 21, No 1 (Sep 2022 Online). Pp 105-22.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2022.2115738

2021:

“Caste-less Tamils and Early Print Public Sphere: Remembering Iyothee Thass (1845-914),” South Asia Research (Sage), Vol 41, No 3, November. Pp 349-68.

https://doi.org/10.1177%2F02627280211034858

2020:

“Rohith-Movement, Conversion and Re-naming: Notes from Hyderabad.” Critical Times: Interventions in Global Critical Theory (Duke Univ. Press), Vol 3, No 3, Dec. Pp 519-27.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/26410478-8662408

2019:

“Towards a Casteless Community: Dalit Experience and Thought as ‘Movement’.” Economic and Political Weekly (Special Article), Vol 54, No 21, May 25. Pp 47-54.

https://www.epw.in/journal/2019/21/special-articles/towards-caste-less-c...

2017:

“One Step Inside Tamilian: On the Anti-Caste Writing of Language.” Social Scientist, Vol 45, Issue 1-2, January-February. Pp 19-32.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/26380327

2015:

“Spectacle Spaces: Production of Caste in recent Tamil films.” South Asian Popular Culture (Taylor & Francis), Vol 13, Issue 2, October. Pp 155-173.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2015.1088499

BOOK CHAPTERS

2025:

“The Anti-Caste Hermeneutic: Iyothee Thassar and Tamil Buddhist Past." Dalit Journeys for Dignity: Religion, Freedom and Caste. Eds. Ramnarayan Rawat, Satyanarayana, and Sanal Mohan. State University of New York Press. Pp 274-301.

https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.27024378.13

“Cast Out Worlds in Print: Iyothee Thass (1845-1914) and Tamil Public Sphere.” Inhabiting Technologies/Modernities: Media and Cultural Practices in South Asia. Eds. P. Thirumal and K.A. Nuaiman. Orient Blackswan. Pp 175-209.

2024:

“Thassar’s Buddha and Civilizational Memory.” Textual Lives of Caste Across the Ages: Hierarchy, Humanity, and Equality in Indian History. Ed. Prathama Banerjee. Bloomsbury UK. Pp 113-125.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/textual-lives-of-caste-across-the-ages-978...

2023:

“Caste and Religion: A Critical Survey.” Sacrafanations—Dalit Religion(s): Epistemology, Theology, and Politics. Ed. Y.T. Vinayaraj. ISPCK & CISRS. Pp 19-50.

https://www.ibpbooks.com/sacrafanations-dalit-religions-epistemology-the...

2022:

"Magizhchi: 'The Casteless Collective' and the Sensorial Exscription," Coauthored with Manju Edachira in The Routledge Companion to Caste and Cinema in India. Eds. Joshil K. Abraham and Judith Misrahi-Barak. Routledge, pp 63-76.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003343578-7

2021:

“Conscripts of Cinema: Dangerous and Deviant Third Wave.” Tamil Cinema in the Twenty-First Century: Caste, Gender and Technology. Eds. Selvaraj Velayutham and Vijay Devadas. Routledge, pp 36-51.

http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780429244025-3

2019:

“Anti-caste Communitas and Out-caste Experience: Space, Body, Displacement and Writing.” The Politics of Belonging in Contemporary India: Anxiety and Intimacy. Ed. Kaustav Chakraborty. Routledge, pp. 101-125.

http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780429295980-8

“From Discourse to Critique? Iyothee Thass and the Dalit Intellectual Legacy.” Multilingualism and the Literary Culture of India. Ed. M.T. Ansari. Sahitya Akademi, pp 200-234.

https://ompublications.in/product/books/OM44246

“Incommensurable Sacral-Secular Sectarianism? Rohith-Movement and the Emergence of the Inappropriable,” co-authored with P. Thirumal in Secular Sectarianism: Limits of Subaltern Politics. Ed. Ajay Gudavarthy. Sage, pp 23-35.

https://in.sagepub.com/en-in/sas/secular-sectarianism/book271597#contents

Popular Articles

Teaching Areas

Critical Theory and Contemporary Thought;

Indian Literatures and Cinema;

Literary and Cultural Studies;

Print History and Social Movements;

Critical Caste and Dalit Studies.

Courses

CV