Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee

Research Interests
American Renaissance, Naturalism, Ethnic American Literature, Indigenous Studies, Life Writing, Critical Race Theory, Whiteness Studies, South Asian Diasporic Film and Bollywood Cinema

Academic Background

Mita Banerjee has been Professor of American Studies at Mainz University since 2010 and will be Gutenberg Research Fellow until 2015. She was previously Professor of North American Cultural Studies at the University of Siegen with an emphasis on Literature. From 2000 to 2002 she worked at the UC Berkeley as an Emmy Noether Scholarship Research Fellow. She was teacher and member of staff in the English Department at Mainz University. In 2003, she obtained her university lecturing qualification and in 1999 her PhD at Mainz University. In 1996, she completed her Master’s Degree in American Studies, English Studies and Slavic Philology (Russian) at the University of Mainz.

Publications (Top 5)

2013

Color Me White: Naturalism/Naturalization in American Literature. Heidelberg: Winter.

2009

Roots Trips and Virtual Ethnicity: Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated. In: Udo Hebel (ed.): Transnational American Memories. Berlin: DeGruyter.

2008

Ethnic Ventriloquism: Literary Minstrelsy in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Heidelberg: Winter.

2005

Race-ing the Century. Heidelberg: Winter.

2002

The Chutneyfication of History: Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje, Bharati Mukherjee and the Postcolonial Debate. Heidelberg: Winter.