Priyamvada Gopal
Gopal in 2019
Born1968 (age 54–55)
India
TitleProfessor of Postcolonial Studies
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of Delhi
Jawaharlal Nehru University
Cornell University
ThesisMidnight's labors: Gender, nation and narratives of social transformation in transitional India, 1932–1954 (2000)
Doctoral advisorBiodun Jeyifo[1]
Academic work
InstitutionsUniversity of Cambridge
Churchill College

Priyamvada Gopal (born 1968)[2] is an Indian-born academic and writer who is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the University of Cambridge. Her primary teaching and research interests are in colonial and postcolonial studies, South Asian literature, critical race studies, and the politics and cultures of empire and globalisation.[3] She has written three books on these subjects: Literary Radicalism in India (2005), The Indian English Novel (2009) and Insurgent Empire (2019).[4]

Gopal's writing has appeared in newspapers and online, and she has contributed occasionally to radio and television programmes in Britain and elsewhere.[3][5] Her remarks about race and empire have gained media attention and condemnation, including over her abuse of other scholars and for alleged anti-Semitism.[6][7][8] In 2021, she was named one of the world's top 50 thinkers by Prospect magazine.[9]

Biography

Early life

Gopal was born in Delhi, India. The daughter of an Indian diplomat, she spent her childhood in India, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan, and attended an international high school in Vienna, Austria, where her father served as a diplomat in the mid-1980s.[10][11] She is from a Brahmin family, and is a critic of the caste system.[12][13]

Education and career

Gopal received a BA in English from the University of Delhi in 1989 and an MA in Linguistics from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1991. She then moved to the United States and received an MA in English from Purdue University in 1993. At Cornell University she earnt an MA in English in 1996 and a PhD in colonial and postcolonial literature in 2000.[3][14][15]

She began her teaching career as a graduate instructor in the Department of English at Cornell University in 1995. She joined Connecticut College in 1999 as an Assistant Professor of English leaving in 2000. She moved to the University of Cambridge in 2001, where she is professor of Postcolonial Studies in the Faculty of English and a teaching fellow at Churchill College.[3][14][16] From 2006 to 2010, she was Dean of Churchill College.[14]

Her third book, Insurgent Empire, was shortlisted for the 2020 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding.[17][18]

Academic research

British Empire

Gopal has written about the impact of empire on contemporary culture in Britain and examined its social and cultural effects in South Asia and other former colonial societies.[19][20][21][22]

In her 2019 book Insurgent Empire, Gopal examined traditions of dissent on the question of empire and how rebellions and resistance in the colonies influenced British critics of empire in a process she called "reverse tutelage".[23][24]

Decolonisation

Gopal believes decolonisation is about a process of thinking about our intellectual, personal and political formation in a historical frame.[25][26] In relation to cultural and intellectual work, she argues that decolonisation poses different kinds of questions in different contexts about our relationship to colonialism.[26] She draws on Ngũgĩ and Fanon to argue that Europe's material, cultural and intellectual riches also cannot be separated from its encounters with the Global South.[26]

In Gopal supported a group of Cambridge students who asked the university to include more black and ethnic minority writers in its English literature curriculum[27][28]

Race

Gopal has argued that whiteness is primarily a cultural category, not a biological one, and is useful for explaining how western society is structured.[29][30][31]In October 2019, Gopal criticised the Equality and Human Rights Commission report "Tackling racial harassment: Universities challenged" for its language and not addressing what she argued were the systemic disadvantages faced by black and minority ethnic students .[32]

Controversies

Winston Churchill working group at Churchill College

In October 2020, Gopal joined a working group at Churchill College to critically examine Winston Churchill's views and actions relating to empire and race.[33][34][35] In June 2021, college Master Athene Donald ended the Working Group's role after a dispute between the College Council and the working party.[36][35][34] Gopal publically criticised the manner in which the group had been dissolved.[34][35][37][38][39]

King's College racial profiling dispute

In June 2018, Gopal alleged racial profiling by college porters at the gate of King's College, Cambridge.[40][41][42][43][44] In October 2018, King's announced that it would put in place a "clearer and simpler means of reporting incidents" and that it would review its procedures for handling complaints.[45]

Daily Mail false allegations against Gopal

In November 2020, the Daily Mail issued an apology and paid £25,000 in damages to Gopal after an opinion piece by Australian journalist Amanda Platell published in June 2020 falsely alleged that Gopal was "attempting to incite a race war and that she supported and endorsed the subjugation and persecution of white people" based on fake Twitter posts attributed to Gopal.[46][47][48][49]

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report (UK) criticism

In 2021, Gopal critised the report issued by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities about race and ethnic disparities in the UK.[50] Gopal argued the report cherry-picked data and minimised and denied structural and institutional racism..[51][52][53][54][55][56]

Antisemitism dispute

In January 2022, Gopal criticised an article published in The Daily Telegraph by historian David Abulafia concerning the acquittal of the protesters who toppled the statue of slave trader and philanthropist Edward Colston in Bristol in 2020.[57][58][59] A subsequent public dispute took place between Gopal and Abulafia about the article, in particular a further piece in Varsity.[60][61][8][62][63]

The Cambridge University Jewish Society and Abulafia, accusing Gopal of a Jewish conspiracy trope and noting that both Abulafia and the student journalist writing in Varsity were Jewish, condemned Gopal's remarks as evoking antisemitic conspiracy theories.[63][64] Gopal released a statement asserting that Varsity had "published misleading and false claims" about her words.[65] The Cambridge Branch of the University and College Union issued a statement supporting Gopal and condemning journalists in "the right-wing press" and Varsity for misrepresenting her views.[66]

Bibliography

Books

  • Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence (Routledge, 2005)[67]
  • The Indian English Novel: Nation, History and Narration (Oxford University Press, 2009)[68]
  • Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (Verso, 2019)[24]

Articles

  • "Of Victims and Vigilantes: The "Bandit Queen" Controversy". Thamyris Amsterdam. vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 73–102 (1997)[69]
  • "'Curious Ironies': Matter and Meaning in Bhabhani Bhattacharya's Novel of the 1943 Bengal Famine". ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature. vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 61–88 (2001)[70]
  • "Sex, space and modernity in the work of Rashid Jahan, "Angareywali"". Marxism, Modernity and Postcolonial Studies. pp. 150–166 (2002)[71]
  • "Reading subaltern history". The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies. pp. 139–161 (2004)[72]
  • "The'Moral Empire': Africa, globalisation and the politics of conscience". New Formations. issue 59, pp. 81–98 (2006)[73]
  • "Concerning Maoism: Fanon, Revolutionary Violence, and Postcolonial India". South Atlantic Quarterly. vol. 112, no. 1, pp. 115–128 (2013)[74]
  • "Speaking with Difficulty: Feminism and Antiracism in Britain after 9/11". Feminist Studies. vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 98–118 (2013)[75]
  • "Redressing anti-imperial amnesia". Race & Class. vol. 57, no. 3, pp. 18–30 (2016)[76]
  • "Of Capitalism and Critique: 'Af-Pak' Fiction in the Wake of 9/11". South-Asian Fiction in English: Contemporary Transformations. pp. 21–36 (2016)[77]
  • "On Decolonisation and the University". Textual Practice. vol. 35, no. 6, pp. 873–899 (2021)[78]

References

  1. ↑ "Literature Tree - Priyamvada Gopal". academictree.org. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  2. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada 1968-, WorldCat, retrieved 25 June 2020
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Professor Priyamvada Gopal, University of Cambridge" (staff profile). Faculty of English, University of Cambridge. n.d. Retrieved 28 June 2020.
  4. ↑ Dasgupta, Piyasree (26 June 2018). "How This Indian-Origin Professor Is Calling Out Cambridge University's 'Racism'". HuffPost.
  5. ↑ Lodhia, Devarshi (12 April 2018). "Cambridge lecturer condemns Daily Mail over 'racist and sexist hatchet job'". Varsity.
  6. ↑ Rawlinson, Kevin (25 June 2020). "'Abolish whiteness' academic calls for Cambridge support". The Guardian.
  7. ↑ Woolcock, Nicola (11 February 2021). "Cambridge college named after Winston Churchill debates his 'backward' views on race". The Times.
  8. 1 2 Harpin, Lee (14 January 2022). "Cambridge professor accused of 'conspiratorial attacks on Jewish students'". Jewish News. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  9. ↑ "The world's top 50 thinkers 2021". Prospect. 13 July 2021. Retrieved 17 February 2022.
  10. ↑ Manral, Kiran (7 November 2019). "Xenophobia Is Not Exclusively A Western Practice: Dr Priyamvada Gopal". SheThePeople.
  11. ↑ Ross, Elliot (5 February 2020). "First rule of fight club: power concedes nothing without a struggle". The Correspondent.
  12. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (18 February 2018). "Response to Mary Beard". Medium. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
  13. ↑ Guéron-Gabrielle, Juliette (8 September 2020). "Professor Gopal: "The humanities gave me scope for youthful rebellion"". Varsity.
  14. 1 2 3 "Professor Priyamvada Gopal, Churchill College" (staff profile). Churchill College, University of Cambridge. n.d. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  15. ↑ Rahimi, Rosa (27 July 2020). "Professor Priyamvada Gopal: "There is such a thing as truth, and we are accountable to truth."". The Cambridge Journal of Political Affairs.
  16. ↑ "Reports - Cambridge University Reporter 6586". www.admin.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  17. ↑ Taylor, Miles (11 July 2019). "Insurgent Empire by Priyamvada Gopal review – a superb study of anticolonial resistance". The Guardian.
  18. ↑ The British Academy. "2020 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize". The British Academy.
  19. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (28 June 2006). "The story peddled by imperial apologists is a poisonous fairytale". The Guardian.
  20. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (2 April 2007). "It is contradictory to condemn slavery and yet celebrate the empire". The Guardian.
  21. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (6 July 2019). "Britain's story of empire is based on myth. We need to know the truth". The Guardian.
  22. ↑ Reisz, Matthew (22 May 2019). "On the front line of Britain's imperial past". Times Higher Education.
  23. ↑ Joseph, Tony (30 May 2020). "'Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent' review: Striking back at the Empire". The Hindu.
  24. 1 2 Gopal, Priyamvada (14 June 2019). Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent. Verso. p. 624. ISBN 9781784784126.
  25. ↑ Boyle, Tristan (2019). "Modern Myth: Insurgent Empire and the Lost Voices in Colonialism with Dr. Priyamvada Gopal". The Archaeology Podcast Network (Podcast). Tristan Boyle.
  26. 1 2 3 Gopal, Priyamvada (28 May 2021). "On Decolonisation and the University". Textual Practice. 35 (6): 873–899. doi:10.1080/0950236X.2021.1929561. S2CID 235636408.
  27. ↑ Kennedy, Maev (26 October 2017). "Cambridge academics seek to 'decolonise' English syllabus". The Guardian.
  28. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (28 October 2017). "Yes, we must decolonise: our teaching has to go beyond elite white men". The Guardian.
  29. ↑ Myriam Francois (2019). "The Whiteness of History with Priyamvada Gopal". We Need to Talk about Whiteness (Podcast). published by Myriam Francois.
  30. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (4 July 2020). "We can't talk about racism without understanding whiteness". The Guardian.
  31. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (8 October 2019). "If we can't call racism by its name, diversity will remain a meaningless buzzword". The Guardian.
  32. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada; Rollock, Nicola (24 October 2019). "'Monolithically white places': academics on racism in universities". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  33. ↑ "Churchill, Empire and Race". Churchill, Empire and Race. Churchill College, Cambridge.
  34. 1 2 3 Adams, Richard. "Cambridge college ends critical examination of founder Winston Churchill". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  35. 1 2 3 Haigh, Elizabeth; Howell, Amy (17 June 2021). "Churchill College disbands working group on Churchill, Race and Empire". Varsity. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  36. ↑ Donald, Athene (17 June 2021). "A Statement from the Master". www.chu.cam.ac.uk.
  37. ↑ Woolcock, Nicola (18 June 2021). "Cambridge college head 'suppressed disapproval of Churchill'". The Times. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  38. ↑ Walsh, Clare (2 July 2021). "Members of Churchill Race and Empire Working Group condemn college for disbanding the group". Varsity.
  39. ↑ Majority Members, Churchill College Working Group (30 June 2021). "Statement of the Working Group on Churchill, Race and Empire". Medium.
  40. ↑ "King's College racism row: Students support academic". BBC News. 21 October 2018.
  41. ↑ Ferguson, Donna (23 June 2018). "I want to see Cambridge University breaking the silence on race". The Guardian.
  42. ↑ Kinchen, Rosie (24 June 2018). "Twitter row doctor Priyamvada Gopal bites back at King's College, Cambridge". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  43. ↑ Oppenheim, Maya (20 June 2018). "Cambridge academic says she will not work for university after accusing porters of racist abuse". The Independent.
  44. ↑ Mirsky, Hannah (21 October 2018). "Meet Priyamvada Gopal - the academic fighting racism at Cambridge University". Cambridge News.
  45. ↑ Proctor, Michael (16 October 2018). "Statement about entry through main Gates of King's College". www.kings.cam.ac.uk.
  46. ↑ Waterson, Jim (13 November 2013). "Daily Mail pays £25,000 to professor it falsely accused of inciting race war". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  47. ↑ Turner, Ben (25 June 2020). "Death threats sent to Cambridge University professor after 'white lives don't matter' tweet". Cambridgeshire Live.
  48. ↑ Rawlinson, Kevin (25 June 2020). "'Abolish whiteness' academic calls for Cambridge support". The Guardian.
  49. ↑ Huskisson, Sophie (25 June 2020). "Priyamvada Gopal promoted to Professorship, as online abuse continues". Varsity.
  50. ↑ "Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities: The Report" (PDF). GOV.UK.
  51. ↑ Walker, Peter (2 April 2021). "No 10's race report used 'cherry-picked' data, say public health experts". The Guardian.
  52. ↑ Swerling, Gabriella (1 April 2021). "Experts thanked in controversial race report say they weren't consulted about contents". The Telegraph.
  53. ↑ Syed, Matthew. "Pit my truth against your truth and it's a terrifying race to the bottom". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  54. ↑ Robinson, Calvin (2 April 2021). "There is no excuse for the hypocritical Left's appalling campaign of abuse". Daily Telegraph.
  55. ↑ Aaronovitch, David. "Philip Roth was right about our online witch-hunts". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  56. ↑ Nick de Bois (3 April 2021). "talkRADIO interview with Priyamvada Gopal". talkRADIO (Podcast). talkRADIO.
  57. ↑ Abulafia, David (6 January 2022). "Nothing is sacred to the woke statue topplers". The Daily Telegraph.
  58. ↑ Gayle, Damien (5 January 2022). "BLM protesters cleared over toppling of Edward Colston statue". The Guardian.
  59. ↑ Jacob Freedland and Fergal Jeffreys, 'Caius historian slams "insulting" Gopal racism claim', Varsity (10 January 2022).
  60. ↑ Gair, Kieran (12 January 2022). "Cambridge professors in row over use of 'eloquent' as racist term". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  61. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada; Titley, Gavan (18 December 2020). "The free speech row at Cambridge will restrict, not expand, expression". The Guardian.
  62. ↑ Kaplan, Josh (14 January 2022). "Cambridge professor accused of tweeting 'conspiratorial attacks' on Jewish student journalists". The Jewish Chronicle.
  63. 1 2 Harpin, Lee (14 January 2022). "Cambridge professor accused of 'conspiratorial attacks on Jewish students'". Jewish News. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  64. ↑ Harpin, Lee (17 January 2022). "Cambridge prof accused of 'Jewish conspiracy trope' by leading historian". Jewish News. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  65. ↑ Moss, Bethan (14 January 2022). "Jewish Society condemns Gopal's 'conspiracy theories and online intimidation'". Varsity.
  66. ↑ @CambridgeUCU (18 January 2022). "Solidarity Statement" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  67. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (9 March 2005). Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence. Routledge. p. 192. ISBN 9780415655453.
  68. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (29 January 2009). The Indian English Novel: Nation, History and Narration. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 232. ISBN 9780199544370.
  69. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (1997). "Of Victims and Vigilantes: The "Bandit Queen" Controversy". Thamyris Amsterdam. Najade Press. 4 (1): 73–102.
  70. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (2001). "'Curious Ironies': Matter and Meaning in Bhabhani Bhattacharya's Novel of the 1943 Bengal Famine". ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature. 32 (3): 61–88.
  71. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (2002). "Sex, space and modernity in the work of Rashid Jahan, "Angareywali"". Marxism, Modernity and Postcolonial Studies. Cultural Margins. Cambridge University Press: 150–166. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511483158.008. ISBN 9780521813679.
  72. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (2004). "Reading subaltern history". The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies. Cambridge University Press: 139–161. doi:10.1017/CCOL0521826942.008. ISBN 9780521534185.
  73. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (2006). "The'Moral Empire': Africa, globalisation and the politics of conscience". New Formations. Lawrence & Wishart Ltd. (59): 81–98.
  74. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (2013). "Concerning Maoism: Fanon, Revolutionary Violence, and Postcolonial India". South Atlantic Quarterly. Duke University Press. 112 (1): 115–128. doi:10.1215/00382876-1891278.
  75. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (2013). "Speaking with Difficulty: Feminism and Antiracism in Britain after 9/11". Feminist Studies. Feminist Studies, Inc. 39 (1): 98–118. doi:10.1353/fem.2013.0027. S2CID 245658599.
  76. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (2016). "Redressing anti-imperial amnesia". Race & Class. SAGE Publications. 57 (3): 18–30. doi:10.1177/0306396815608127. S2CID 146938315.
  77. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (2016). "Of Capitalism and Critique: 'Af-Pak' Fiction in the Wake of 9/11". South-Asian Fiction in English: Contemporary Transformations. Palgrave MacMillan: 21–36. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-40354-4_2. ISBN 978-1-137-40353-7.
  78. ↑ Gopal, Priyamvada (2021). "On Decolonisation and the University". Textual Practice. Routledge. 35 (6): 873–899. doi:10.1080/0950236X.2021.1929561. S2CID 235636408.
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