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Prem Poddar is an Indian academic who has served as Vice Chancellor of Darjeeling Hills University since March 2023. He has taught in India, Britain, and in two universities in Denmark. He was first an associate professor in Postcolonial Studies in Aarhus and then Professor in Cultural Encounters in Copenhagen.

Early life

Prem Poddar grew up in Kalimpong and went to a Swiss Jesuit school run by Father Hofstetter and Father Gressot. He studied in Kalimpong College for his BA (Honours) in Philosophy, Politics and Literature and completed his MA in North Bengal University. His post-graduate studies at Smith College (Massachusetts) were in American and Interdisciplinary Studies. His first PhD on the appropriations of Mikhail Bakhtin's theories in the UK and US was submitted in India. His second PhD on Postcolonial Theory and nationalism is from the University of Sussex, U.K. This work was supervised by Homi Bhabha. His first job was at St Joseph's College and later at Jhargram Raj College and Darjeeling Government College. Like many from the region of his birth, he speaks Hindi, Nepali, Bangla and English. He also learnt ein bischen Deutsch and has elementary (Jīchǔ shúliàn chéngdù) Mandarin.

Career

He is A Senior Research Associate in the Centre for World Environmental History at the University of Sussex and an Honorary Senior Fellow at University of Manchester in U.K. He was Professor in Cultural Encounters at Rosklide University in Denmark for a decade. Prior to that, he was an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Fellow in Berlin, AHRC Fellow at Southampton University and Carlsberg Senior Fellow at Cambridge University. He was a visiting professor at Fudan University in China, Confucius Senior Fellow in Shanghai, and visiting professor in Heidelberg University.

He is the author of many articles and books. They include Violent Civilities (2002), Postkolonial Contra-modernitet: Immigration, Identitet, Historie (2004), and Invented Futures: Fin de Siècle Fantasies (2016) which have been revised and updated in Chinese and published as Cengjing de weilai 曾经的未来 (Imaged Futures) (2023). He has also edited Translating Nations (2000); A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Thought (Columbia University Press/Edinburgh University Press, 2005/2008), Empire and After: Englishness in Postcolonial Perspective (Berghahn Books, 2007/2010); A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures — Continental Europe and its Empires (Edinburgh University Press, 2008/2011), and Gorkhas Imagined (2009). His forthcoming series of articles and a monograph (China in India: Himalayan Kalimpong) from Cambridge University Press investigate India-China relations through the optic of borders in the eastern Himalayas. His continuing interest in ‘state’ and ‘nation’ as conceptual contexts for analysing cultural representation forms the centre of his forthcoming work on the Politics of the Passport.

References

Sources

• "Prem Poddar to take charge as vice-chancellor of Darjeeling Hills University on Friday". www.telegraphindia.com. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
• Banerjee, Amitava (24 March 2023). "Prem Poddar takes charge as V-C of Darj Hill Univ". www.millenniumpost.in. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
• "Prof. Prem Poddar". ICAS:MP. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
• "West Bengal State Council of Higher Education (WBSCHE), Government of West Bengal". wbsche.wb.gov.in. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
• "Darjeeling Hills University". www.dhuniv.in. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
• "prem poddar | Roskilde University - Academia.edu". ruc-dk.academia.edu. Retrieved 24 April 2023.

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