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.

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

2025.

“A Symphonic Zone? Questions of Language, Education, and Caste.” Economic and Political Weekly (Commentary) Vol 60, No 13, Mar 29. Pp 12-15.

https://www.epw.in/journal/2025/13/commentary/symphonic-zone.html

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.

https://www.orientblackswan.com/details?id=9789354428920

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

ESSAYS (including translations):

2025. "The Essence of Han Kang": An interview (along with Ms. Uma Madhu) on Han Kang, the Nobel prize winner for Literature in 2024. IIT-Tech Ambit (Nobel Prize Edition). Jan. Pp 10-15.

https://iit-techambit.in/the-essence-of-han-kang/

2020. “Is there a Nazi Gaze? Possibilities of an Oppositional Look.” Chalachitra Sameeksha. July. Pp 78-81.

2018. “Literature and Censorship” (Ilakkiyamum Thanikkaiyum by Perumal Murugan), co-translated from Tamil to English with P. Vellaisamy, Women Philosophers’ Journal (ISSN: 2225-3351, Special Issue on Intellectuals, Philosophers and Women in India: Endangered Species), No 4-5, December. Pp 125-129.

2017. “Les ‘Conscrits’ du Cinéma: La Troisième Vague Tamoul.” (Conscripts of Cinema: The Tamil Third Wave), translated from English to French, La Nouvelle Revue de l’Inde – Le Tamil Nadu (ISSN: 2104-2969, The New Indian Review – Tamil Nadu) No 12, January. Pp 94-97.

2016. “Vom Schatten zum Licht: Leben-Tod, Dalit-Sein und die neue Gemeinschaft.” (“From Shadows to Stars”: Living-Deaths, Dalit-ness, and the Coming-Community), translated from English to German by Theodor Rathgeber, Südasien (ISSN: 0933-5196, South Asian) Vol 36, No 3, October. Pp 37-39.

https://doi.org/10.11588/sueas.2016.3.16606

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

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