Tara Sonali Saldanha
Assistant Professor
Email : tara.saldanha@sbm.nmims.edu
Academic and Professional Qualification
- PhD, English, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, 2025
- Master of Arts, English, St. Joseph’s University [formerly St. Joseph’s College (Autonomous)], Bengaluru, 2017
- Bachelor of Arts, English, St. Xavier’s College, Mapusa, affiliated to Goa University, 2015
- Qualified UGC-NET (LS), 2017
Teaching Experience
- Institute Teaching Assistant, IIT Bombay, India, July 2019- July 2024.
- Assistant Professor of English (contract basis), Dhempe College of Arts and Science, Goa- affiliated to Goa University, India, June 2017- May 2018 and June 2018-May 2019
Ph.D. Topic
- Figurations and Selves: Literary Representations and Autobiographical Narrations of Women Domestic Workers in India
Research Interest
- Autobiography/Life Narrative Studies, Automediality, Indian Writing in English, Postcolonial Studies
Recent Publications
Saldanha, Tara Sonali. “Stories in Service: The Figure of the Ayah Storyteller in Anglo Indian Literature.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 2025. (Forthcoming)
---. “#maidturnedcomedian: Deepika Mhatre’s Stand-up Comedy as Life Narration.” The IACLALS Journal, 2025 (Forthcoming)
---. “Building the Raj: The Role of Anglo-Indian Women in British India.” Muse India, no. 77, Feb. 2018
---. Review of The Colour Thief, by Stephen Aitken and Sylvia Sikunder, The Book Review, Vol. XLII, No 11, November 2018, pg. 15.
---. Review of When the Mountains Roared by Jess Butterworth, The Book Review, Vol. XLII, No 11, November 2018, pg. 22.
---. Review of Shrinking Vanita by Manjula Padmanabhan, The Book Review, Vol. XLII, No 11, November 2018, pg. 35.
---. Review of The Other: Stories of Difference by Paro Anand, The Book Review, Vol. XLII, No 11, November 2018, pg. 39.
Conference Proceedings
- Presented a paper titled “#maidturnedcomedian: Deepika Mhatre’s Stand-up Comedy as Life Narrative” at the IACLALS Annual conference Wit, Humour and the Carnivalesque in Literature and Performance, 15-17 February 2024 held at BITS Pilani, K K Birla Campus, Goa (Funding to travel and attend received from IIT Bombay)
- Presented a paper titled “Literary Representations of Storytelling and Ayahs in Colonial India” at From Colonial Modernity to Decolonisation: The British Empire and Beyond, 15-16 September 2023, University of Auckland (online).
- Presented a paper titled “A Room Not Quite Her Own: Writing and Domestic Work in Baby Halder’s A Life Less Ordinary” at the Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature & Language Studies (IACLALS) in collaboration with Janki Devi Memorial College, University of Delhi Annual Conference 2023 (Online) on Metropolis and Margins: Shifting Configurations in Literature and Language Studies April 26-29, 2023
- Presented a paper in person titled “Reading Literary Representations of Storytelling and Ayahs in Colonial India” at the British Association of South Asian Studies Annual Conference, University of Leeds, UK, 3rd-5th April 2023. (Funding to travel and attend received from IIT Bombay)
- Presented an overview of doctoral research titled “Reading Life Narratives of Women Domestic Workers in India” in a small group discussion led by Prof. Ricia Chansky, at Life Narrative Futures: An International Auto/Biography Association (IABA) networking event for graduate students and early-career researchers. Online, 29th October 2021
- Presented a paper titled “Exploring Movement, Space, and Place in Tejubehan’s Drawing from the City” at the Virtual International Conference on Postcolonial Studies in Comics and Graphic Narratives from South Asia Decolonising the Panel, Deconstructing the Gutter. IIT Patna and Postcolonial Studies Association UK, 25th-26 September 2021
Refereed Journal Articles
- Saldanha, Tara Sonali. “Stories in Service: The Figure of the Ayah Storyteller in Anglo Indian Literature.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 2025. (Forthcoming)
- Saldanha, Tara Sonali. “#maidturnedcomedian: Deepika Mhatre’s Stand-up Comedy as Life Narration.” The IACLALS Journal, 2025 (Forthcoming)
Fellowship
- Teaching Assistant under Institute Teaching Assistantship, IIT Bombay (2019-2024)
Grant
- Charles Wallace India Trust- short research grant (2023) (facilitated research visit to the UK)
- Dhirubhai Ambani Undergraduate Scholarship (2012-2015)