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Instructor Spotlight: Aniruddha Mukhopadhyay

Aniruddha Mukhopadhyay is a PhD student in the English department at UF and has been teaching for the University Writing Program since Fall 2005. He has also been mentoring incoming Graduate Assistants for the Writing Program since Fall 2006. Aniruddha received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 2002 from the University of Calcutta. In 2004, he received an award for academic excellence for having secured the highest GPA in the English MA program at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. For his PhD dissertation, Aniruddha is exploring the figures of the Native Informant and the subaltern in the fictional works of authors like Amitav Ghosh who traverse the boundaries of national literatures into the trans-cultural arena of a globalized world. Aniruddha has also taught classes on American and British literature for the English department at UF.

Aniruddha began teaching remedial English classes at JNU. Teaching in the US here at the University of Florida, in a completely different academic setting, was both a difficult and an exciting prospect. Having been educated in a school system modeled on the colonial system of education the British established in India, Aniruddha came to appreciate the freedom and value of independent thinking during his graduate years. As a teacher, however, he realized that absolute freedom without guidance does not lead to intelligent thinking. Not only his teaching, but his experience as a University Writing Program "mentor" has convinced him that the classroom space as learning environment needs both the structure of a well-organized syllabus as well as the flexibility of independent reasoning. Aniruddha hopes to finish his PhD and take up University teaching as a full-time profession while at the same time carry on with his research interests in globalization and postcolonial studies.