Dr. Ria Banerjee
Guttman faculty member Dr. Ria Banerjee has been selected for the maximum funding of the CUNY Community College Research Grant (CCRG) Mentored Undergraduate Research program to continue a creative storytelling archival project that began in AY 2019‐2020. The CCRG Mentored Undergraduate Research program is designed to support faculty basic research endeavors and to increase the number of associate degree students engaged in faculty-mentored research projects. Dr. Banerjee’s work with Guttman students to document and explore their interactions with the legacy of colonialism captures faculty commitment to the student-centered pedagogy and opportunities for guided research strongly supported by the College.
Entitled “Narrating Truth to Power: The Storytelling Project‐II in ENGL 215: ‘Colonialism in Twentieth-Century Literature and Film’,” the proposal allows the mentoring of three student Managing Editors and the creation of an online publication of previously collected student narratives. The project’s central questions are: How does the legacy of colonialism continue to impact New York City’s migrant populations? Can we better understand the impact of colonial mentalities upon CUNY students’ lives through their own words?
Associate Professor of English Dr. Banerjee joined the Guttman faculty in 2013 and serves as the Program Coordinator of Liberal Arts and Sciences, heading the Social Sciences and Humanities track. She has taught Composition I and II in the First-Year Experience and the LAS-SSHU courses Cities in Film and Literature, Topics in Literature, and the LAS Capstone, all focused on her areas of expertise in literary modernism; World War I and the interwar years; drama and film studies; and 20th-century colonialism. Dr. Banerjee earned her Ph.D. from the CUNY Graduate Center, with a specialization in literary modernism, primarily Anglophone British, European, and Indian writing of the 1910s-1930s. Her research interests include women’s fiction and poetry, feminist studies, and film studies, particularly film noir.
