Dr. Bidisha Banerjee is Associate Professor of English in the Literature and Cultural Studies Department at the Education University of Hong Kong. She has a M.A. in English from Claremont Graduate University and a Phd from the University of Iowa. She won the Jeffrey Campbell Fellowship which enabled her to teach in the Gender Studies department at St. Lawrence University in New York. Prior to joining EdUHK, she also taught at Chinese University and City University (both in Hong Kong) as an academic visitor.  Dr. Banerjee's research and teaching interests include postcolonial studies, globality and transnationalism, diaspora and exile, postcolonial feminist fictions and theory, cultural studies, Hong Kong urban culture and film studies. Her book Traces of the Real: The Absent Presence of Photography in South Asian Literature, is forthcoming with Liverpool University Press in 2021. She has presented her work widely at conferences in Europe, Asia and the US. Some of her work on South Asian diaspora has been published in journals like Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Text and Journal of Postcolonial Writing. She won the 2011-12 Excellence in Teaching Award in the Faculty of Humanities and was nominated for the Hong Kong wide 2013 UGC Teaching Award. Dr. Banerjee is the Director of the Centre for Popular Culture in the Humanities (CPCH), a faculty level research centre in the Faculty of Humanities at EdUHK (www.cpch.hk). She served as the director of 我城我書 / One City One Book Hong Kong, a community wide reading project and Hong Kong's first One City One Book initiative in its inaugural year, 2019 (www.onecityonebook.hk).

postcolonial studies, globality and transnationalism, diaspora and exile, postcolonial feminist fictions and theory, cultural studies, film studies and visual culture

Dr. Banerjee teaches courses in postcolonial literature and gender and popular culture. 

Scholarly Books, Monographs and Chapters

  Chapter in an edited book (author)

• Bidisha Banerjee and Mindy Blaise (2017). Data Provocations: Disappointing, Failing , Malfunctioning. Mirka Koro-Ljungberg, Teija Loytonen, and Marek Tesar, Disrupting Data in Qualitative Inquiry: Entanglements with the Post-Critical and Post-Anthropocentric (49-60). New York: Peter Lang.
• Banerjee, B. (2007). No nation woman: The diasporic woman's quest for home. In M. Lai, & S. P. Kumar (Eds.), Interpreting Homes in South Asian Literature (pp.168-179). India: Pearson Education.

Journal Publications

  Publication in refereed journal

• Banerjee, Bidisha (2021). Picturing Precarity: Diasporic Belonging and Camp Life in Leila Abdelrazaq's Baddawi. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, --, 1-18.
• DeCoursey, Matthew and Banerjee, Bidisha (2020). Three readers of Ibsen in Hong Kong: A longitudinal study of self-reflection. English in Education, xx, 1-15.
• Bidisha Banerjee (2020). Banerjee, B. (2020). Defiance and the speakability of rape: Decolonizing trauma studies in Mahasweta Devi's short fiction. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 2020 (0), 1-18.
• Bidisha Banerjee (2018). An unapologetic feminist response. Research in Education, 101 (1), 17-24.
• Bidisha Banerjee (2017). "Looking Beyond “buildings of chrome and glass”: Hong Kong’s “uncanny postcoloniality” in photographs of Tin Shui Wai.". Visual Studies, 32(1), 60-69.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2016). Kinship between ‘Companion Species’: A Posthuman Refiguration of the Immigrant Condition in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 52(4), -----.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2016). "Creating a 'well-fitted habitus': Material Culture, Home Making and Diasporic Belonging in Shaun Tan's The Arrival.". Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 7(1), 53-69.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2013). Utopian Transformations in the Contact Zone: a posthuman, postcolonial reading of Shaun Tan and John Marsden’s The Rabbits. Global Studies of Childhood, Vol. 3, Issue 4, 418-426.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2013). What lies within: Misrecognition and the uncanny in Hong Kong's Cityscape. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 14, issue 4, 519-537.
• Blaise, M. Banerjee, B. Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. & Taylor, A (2013). Editorial: Researching the naturecultures of postcolonial childhoods. Global Studies of Childhood, Vol. 3, Issue 4, 350-354.
• Banerjee, B. & Blaise, M. (2013). There's something in the air: Becoming-with research practices. Cultural Studies<=>Critical Methodologies, ifirst doi:10.1177/15327086134, xx-xx.
• Bidisha Banerjee (2011). The Native as “(An)Other” Self: Colonial Anxiety in Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King. The Kipling Journal, 85 #344, 7-20.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2011). “Exoticized Heroine or Hybrid Woman? Diasporic Female Subjectivity in Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala. Asian Cinema, 22 #2, 417-432.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2010). “Diaspora’s Dark Room: Photography and the Vision of Loss in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Story ‘Hema and Kaushik.’”. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 45.3, 443-456.
• Bidisha Banerjee (2010). “Identity at the Margins: Queer Diasporic Film and the Exploration of Same-Sex Desire in Deepa Mehta’s Fire”. Studies in South Asia Film and Media, A, Vol. 2, Issue 1, 19-39.
• Bidisha Banerjee (2009). “Revisions, Reroutings and Return: Reversing the Teleology of Diaspora in Sunetra Gupta’s Memories of Rain. Postcolonial Text, A, Vol. 5, Issue 2, 1-15.
• Bidisha Banerjee (2009). “Traveling Bodies: Gender, Nationalism and Diasporic Identity Formation in Gurinder Chadha’s Bhaji on the Beach”. Asian Cinema, Vol. 20 #2, 18-38.

Conference Papers

  Invited conference paper

• Bidisha Banerjee (2017, April). “Becoming Udayan: Photography and the Devastating Doubling of Brothers in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland.”. Invited lecture delivered at St. Lawrence University (Department of English), Canton, NY.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2015, July). “Creating a ‘well-fitted habitus’: Material Culture, Home Making and Diasporic Belonging in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival.”. Department of English, French and German Studies, Faculty of Letters, University of Oviedo, Spain, Oviedo, Spain.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2015, June). “Finding Gauri: Photography and a Reappraisal of Diasporic Womanhood in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland.”. Research Centre on Migration Studies, Department of English and Philology, University of Huelva, Spain, Spain.
• Banerjee, B. (2008, April). Silencing the westerner: First person narration in Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Paper presented at the 3rd International Conference of International Drama/Theatre and Education Association: Studies in English, Izmir, Turkey.

  Refereed conference paper

• Banerjee, Bidisha (2018, July). “Stepping Through Doors: Rethinking Magical Realism as Postcolonial Discourse in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West.”. CISLE (Centre for the International Study of Literatures in English), Ljubljana, Slovenia.
• Banerje, Bidisha (2017, October). “The Necessary Expulsion of the (M)Other: Immigrant Matricide and Abjection in Ann Hui’s Film Night and Fog.”. Nation, Gender and History: Asian Cinemas in Perspective. An Intl. Conference, Vilnius, Lithuania.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2017, July). “Allo-portraits of a Mother: Photography and Diasporic M(o)therhood in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland.”. Border Crossings: Translation, Migration and Gender in the Americans, the Transatlantic and the Transpacific, Universite Bordeaux, Montaigne, France.
• Bidisha Banerjee (2017, April). “Posthuman Utopias: Inter-species Assemblages and Migranthood in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival.”. Utopia After the Human Conference, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2016, July). “No breasts. Two dry scars…”: The Metaphor of Rape and Postcolonial Trauma in Mahasweta Devi’s “Behind the Bodice.”. 17th ACLALS Conference, 2016. University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2016, June). “Looking Beyond “buildings of chrome and glass”: Questioning Hong Kong’s postcolonial identity in Derrick Chang’s photographs of Tin Shui Wai. Sixth Asian Conference on Cultural Studies (ACCS), 2016, Kobe, Japan.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2015, June). “Spaces of Hope Amidst the Monumental: Citizenship, Protest and Urban Space in Postcolonial Hong Kong.”. V Lisbon Consortium, Lisbon.
• Blaise, Mindy and Bidisha Banerjee (2014, April). There’s something in the air: Becoming-with research practices.”. “There’s something in the air: Becoming-with research practices.” American Educational Research Association Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as part of the symposium, ‘Various un/thinkable possibilities of ‘data’’, Philadelphia, PA. USA.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2013, July). Learning Beyond our Human Concerns: An Exploration of the Post-human in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival. ALEA/AATE National Conference - Brave New World: English and Literacy Teaching for the 21st Century, QUT, Brisbane, Australia.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2013, June). What Lies Within: Misrecognition and the Uncanny in Hong Kong’s Cityscape. ICAS 8: East West Crossroads, Macau.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2013, June). “Who will save us from the rabbits?” A Posthuman, Postcolonial Reading of Shaun Tan’s The Rabbits.‟. Transcultural Imaginaries: Making New, Making Strange. A Moving World’s Conference, NTU, Singapore.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2013, April). “’No breasts, two dry scars…’: The Metaphor of Rape and Postcolonial Trauma in Mahasweta Devi’s ‘Behind the Bodice.’”. Seventh International IDEA Conference: Studies in English, Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2012, October). Kinship Between ‘Companion Species’: A Posthuman Refiguration of the Immigrant Condition in Shaun Tan’s ‘The Arrival’. Research Seminar: Researching Postcolonial Childhoods across Hong Kong, Australia, and Canada, Hong Kong.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2012, March). Caricatures with Integrity: Subverting Anglo Indian Stereotypes in Indian Cinema. Asian Cinema Studies Society Conference, Hong Kong.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2011, November). “Living in No Man’s Land: Notions of Home, Belonging and the Double Displacement of Anglo Indians in Bow Barracks Forever.”. “Other” Indias: The Richness of Indian Multiplicity, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Canaries, Spa.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2011, September). “Politicising the Pictorial: A Postcolonial Reading of Images in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival.”. 11th Biennial European Association for Studies on Australia (EASA) International Conference. Crossing the Borders: Reality, desire and Imagination in Australian, New Zealand and the Pacific lives, literatures and cultures, Presov, Slovakia.
• Banerjee, Bidisha (2011, June). “Exoticized Heroine or Hybrid Woman? Diasporic Female Subjectivity in Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala.". Biennial Conference of the International Journal of Arts and Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic.
• Bidisha Banerjee (2010, June). “Understanding the Self as the Other: Geopolitics and the Dramatic Monologue in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist.”. ACLALS Conference, Nicosia, Cyprus.
• Nicholas YB Wong, Bidisha Banerjee (2010, April). "Embattled Lives in Marginal Space: Portrayals of Tin Shui Wai in Hong Kong Cinema". Cinema and Landscape Conference, University of Sheffield, UK.
• Bidisha Banerjee (2009, September). “Memory and Mourning: Photography and the Vision of Loss in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth.”. Paper presented at "Glocal Imaginaries Conference", University of Lancaster.
• Banerjee, B. (2009, May). Capturing impermanence, finding the self: The trope of photography and diasporic identity formation in Jhumpa Lahiri's story "Hema and Kaushik". Paper presented at the Gesellschaft fur die Neuen Englischsprachigen Literaturen (GNEL) Conference 2009, Munster, Germany.
• Banerjee, B. (2009, May). Will she, won't she? Gender, violence and the female suicide bomber in Santosh Sivan's film "The Terrorist". Paper presented at the Experiencing Gender Conference, Ⅳ International Interdisciplinary Conference, Huelva, Spain.
• Banerjee, B. (2008, February). Framing lesbian desire: Alternative viewing practices in queer cinema. Paper presented at the Lesbian Lives XV: Writing Lesbian Culture: Theories and Praxis, Dublin, Ireland.
• Banerjee, B. (2007, July). Revisions, reroutings and return: Reversing the teleology of diaspora in Sunetra Gupta's Memories of Rain. Paper presented at the Rerouting the Postcolonial Conference, Northampton, UK.

All Other Outputs

• Banerjee, B. (2008). Reviewer of journal articles for Postcolonial Text, Gender and Education and ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and reviews.

Spaces of Precarity: Migration, Spatiality and the Refugee Graphic Narrative

The refugee crisis of the 21st century is one of the most challenging the globe has faced; today more than an estimated 68 million people are displaced from their homes. Postcolonial and diaspora studies have been slow to respond to the need to recon . . . Project Start Year : 2022  Chief Investigator(s) : BANERJEE, Bidisha

Cultivating Students’ Global Perspectives through Course Design with an Emphasis on the Affective Aspect of Learning

The global challenges of our century underscore the need for students to be able to value diverse cultures and perspectives, empathise and work with others dramatically different from themselves and solve problems that transcend national borders. Whi . . . Project Start Year : 2020  Chief Investigator(s) : BUCHTEL, Emma Ellen Kathrina 蒲安梅 ; CHATELIER, Stephen Eric ; YU, Kwan Wai Eric 余君偉   (Dr BANERJEE, Bidisha as Co-Investigator)

Investigating Hong Kong Students' Aspirations for the Future

In recent months, school students have organized school strikes, class boycotts, human protest chains, joined front-line protests, been arrested (30% under 18 years) and shot (2 students; 14 & 18 years), with more than 300 school students involved in . . . Project Start Year : 2020  Chief Investigator(s) : HALSE CHRISTINE MARGARET   (Dr BANERJEE, Bidisha as Co-Investigator)

Thanatic Ethics: The Circulation of Bodies in Migratory Spaces

The American ship the Sunny South carried “a freight of seventy dead Chinamen” from San Francisco to Hong Kong on May 15th 1855. It was a part of the large scale repatriation of human remains, fueled by the desire of Chinese emigrants to be buried in . . . Project Start Year : 2020  Chief Investigator(s) : BANERJEE, Bidisha

Picturing Precarity: Migration, Spatiality and the Refugee Graphic Novel

Following critics like Simon Gikandi (2010) and Giorgio Agamben (1998, 2000) who have theorized the refugee as a new kind of Other that challenges global cultural flows, “Picturing Precarity” calls for an alternative migration framework based on spat . . . Project Start Year : 2019  Chief Investigator(s) : BANERJEE, Bidisha

“Learning to Read, Learning to See: Using Graphic Novels in the English Language Classroom” Received January 2019

This is a Quality Education Fund (QEF) project funded by the Education Bureau (EdB) of Hong Kong. It is a visual literacy project based on using graphic novels in the English Language classroom. Project Start Year : 2019  Chief Investigator(s) : BANERJEE, Bidisha

“One City One Book Hong Kong, 2018-19: Shaun Tan’s The Arrival.”

This project funds Hong Kong's first ever One City One Book, a community wide reading initiative with research, teaching and knowledge transfer elements. Project Start Year : 2018  Chief Investigator(s) : BANERJEE, Bidisha

“One City One Book Student Ambassadors.”

This grant has funded the training and activities of the One City One Book Student Ambassadors. Project Start Year : 2018  Chief Investigator(s) : BANERJEE, Bidisha

“One City One Book: Exploring Across Cultures and Around the World.”

This grant was received to support 我城我書 / One City One Book Hong Kong and its internationalization in the wider Asian region beyond Hong Kong. Project Start Year : 2018  Chief Investigator(s) : BANERJEE, Bidisha

"Traces of the Real: The Absent Presence of Photography in Postcolonial and Diasporic Literature"

Diasporic literature with its attendant themes of loss, longing, mourning and trauma, has obvious resonances with photography. By bringing together the multidisciplinary fields of postcolonial literature, migration studies and photography, this proje . . . Project Start Year : 2016  Chief Investigator(s) : BANERJEE, Bidisha

Good Teaching Practice – Incorporation of Development of Generic Skills into Course Teaching at Higher Education Context

The present project is related to Community of Practice (CoP). It aims to promote good teaching practice with the focus of incorporating the generic intended learning outcomes (GILOs) in course teaching and develop a peer sharing atmosphere on campus . . . Project Start Year : 2015  Chief Investigator(s) : CHENG, May Hung May 鄭美紅   (Dr BANERJEE, Bidisha as Team Member)

Developing Students’ Affective Attitude in Secondary EFL Classrooms in the PRC

The study investigates the beliefs, design and practices of secondary school teachers from the PRC when implementing the affective dimension of the English language curriculum, and finds out the extent the pedagogy and approaches suggested in the cur . . . Project Start Year : 2010  Chief Investigator(s) : LI, Ka Wo, Benjamin 李家和   (Dr BANERJEE, Bidisha as Co-Investigator)

Racialization of the Asian Female Domestic Worker in Cyprus

Given the complicated history of colonialism as well as a problematic postcolonial present in Cyprus, I am particularly interested in studying the racial othering of the Asian foreign domestic worker in Cyprus and comparing it with the kind of otheri . . . Project Start Year : 2010  Chief Investigator(s) : BANERJEE, Bidisha

“Migrant Workers in Hong Kong.”

The purpose of this project is to connect classroom teaching with the real world and to educate students and heighten their awareness on issues of migration. To create a database (audio and video files) of material on migrant workers in Hong Kong and . . . Project Start Year : 2010  Chief Investigator(s) : BANERJEE, Bidisha

In-service Programme for Guangdong English Teachers 2009

A total of 40 teachers and researchers from different parts of the Guangdong province participated in the programme, which was held at HKIEd from 6 July 2009 to 24 July 2009. This was the 10th Programme jointly orgainised by the Guangdong Education B . . . Project Start Year : 2009  Chief Investigator(s) : LI, Ka Wo, Benjamin 李家和   (Dr BANERJEE, Bidisha as Team Member)

Tin Shui Wai On Screen

In recent years, Hong Kong cinema has been overwhelmed with pan-Asian co-productions (mainly with China), resulting in several epic and martial arts blockbusters. However, such film portray a landscape outside the city and the authentic image of the . . . Project Start Year : 2009  Chief Investigator(s) : BANERJEE, Bidisha

Dr. Banerjee is currently serving as an Editorial Board member (2015-18, currently serving second 4 year term, 2019-23) for Gender and Education.

She acts a s a reviewer for the following journals:

Public Culture, Continuum, Atlantic Studies, Feminist Media Studies, ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews and Postcolonial Text.

She has been invited to review book manuscripts for Palgrave Macmillan and Routledge.

 

Dr. Banerjee's recent Knowledge Transfr activities include:

“One City One Book Hong Kong 2019” EdUHK’s CRAC funded project, a community wide reading programme initiated by CPCH. Director. 

Moderator for a conversation with Professor Kathleen Ahrens and Dr. Zoran Poposki at the opening of “A Foreign Land, A New Home: Shaun Tan’s The Arrival” Art Exhibit. January 5, 2019. Hong Kong Arts Centre. Launch event of One City One Book HK 2019. 

Moderator for discussion with Indonesian writer Intan Paramaditha about her short story collection Apple and Knife. Hong Kong International Literary Festival. November 3, 2018

 "Community Service: Working in the Humanities, for Humanity: Reading and Discussion.” Cha reading Series. Dec. 6, 2018. Kubrick. Participant.

 Presentation entitled “Learning to Read, Learning to See: The Use of Graphic Novels to Enhance English Language teaching” delivered at the World Book Day Fest organized by the Education Bureau (EdB) Hong Kong. April 21st, 2018

 Panel Moderator for “Are we home yet? Families and Asian Diasporas.” Panel participants: Min Jin Lee, Jade Chang and Sreedhevi Iyer. Hong Kong International Literary Festival. December 11, 2017.

 Moderator for Book Launch of Accomplice to Memory by Q.M. Zhang. May 23rd, 2017. GROWHOUSE, Central, Hong Kong. http://www.festival.org.hk/accomplice-to-memory-q-m-zhang-book-launch/

 Leading a panel discussion on Girish Karnad’s play “Boiled Beans on Toast” following a reading of the play by members of Pants’ Theatre. August 22nd at Eslite Books, Causeway Bay and August 23rd 2016 at Broadway Cinematheque in Yau Ma Tei.

 Leading a panel discussion on Helen Tse’s novel Sweet Mandarin, following a production of the novel’s adaptation by Pants’ Theatre. November 7th, 2016 at Hong Kong Cultural Centre.

 “Sex and Sexuality in Literature.” A public lecture as part of “The English that you didn’t Learn in School” Series, organized by the English Language Education Department at HKIEd. March 19, 2016 at HKIEd.