DR. RUCHIKA JAIN

Assistant Professor

Ph.D. in English from HSS, IIT Kanpur.

M.A. English from Ambedkar University, Delhi.

B.Sc. in Multimedia and Animation from PTU

ruchika.jain@thapar.edu

Ruchika Jain is an Assistant Professor of Literature and Cultural Studies at the Thapar School of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Her PhD is from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Her thesis, pioneer research on the mythological character Ravana, correlates the multiplicity and contrast of Ravana’s various representations with diverse cultural assimilations, political appropriations, and moral relativity and philosophy, across Indian Ramayanas of the past and the present. It attempts to rethink Ravana’s role in the Ramayana tradition and locate him as a cultural symbol that embodies the tradition's qualities of plurality, diversity, and dissent.

In her postgraduation in English at Ambedkar University, Delhi, Ruchika was awarded distinction and double scholarship. Her MA dissertation was on “The Human Condition of Ravana in Jain Ramayana and Asura”. She also coordinated a Katha-sponsored project "Translating India: Understanding Diversity" with the leadership of Prof. Sukrita Paul Kumar. The project was motivated towards creating active academic discussion on translation and translation studies across colleges and institutes in Delhi NCR.

Ruchika has been volunteering as a teacher with various NGOs for over 8 years and has also worked professionally as an Editor and Digital Artist.

Papers Published

Papers in Journals

• Reinterpreting Self and Other through Ramayanas and their Multifaceted Ravanas, Refereed web-journal S?hitya, Comparative Literature Association of India (CLAI), Vol. 11 Issue 1, 13-24, June 2023, ISSN 2249 – 6416.
• The Becoming of Ravana in A. Neelakantan’s novel Asura, UGC-care listed and Refereed Journal of Literature and Cultural Studies, Mizoram University, Vol. V, 1, June 2018, 148-158, ISSN 2348 – 1188.

Book Chapter

• Revisiting Ramayana by Rewriting Ravana: A Study of Amish Tripathi’s ‘Raavan: Enemy of Aryavarta’. Mythological Fiction: An Introduction. Edited by Neena Gupta Vij, Raj Gaurav Verma and Vishakha Sen. Sarup Publishers, New Delhi, 2023. Pp. 71-98.

Paper Presentations

• Resurgence of the Ramayana: Polarization or Tradition?, National conference of the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association, Texas, USA, 5-8 April 2023, pp. 125.
• A Demon, Human and God: Ravana and the Indian Problem of Evil, Oxford Symposium on Religious Studies, Oxford University, Somerville College, UK, 2-4 December 2019.
• Reinterpreting Alterity through Diversity across Ramayanas and their Multifaceted Ravanas, International Web-conference on Rethinking Humanities and its Entanglements, Amity Institute of English Studies and Research, Amity University Kolkata, August 5-7 2020, Online.
• Speculating the truth of Ramayana: Analyzing Selected Stories from Breaking the Bow, International Conference on Literature, Culture, and Society in the Age of Post-Truth, Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (IACLALS) and Department of English, Pondicherry University, February 6-8, 2019.
• The Making of a Villain- A Comparative Analysis of V. Raghunathan's Duryodhana and A. Neelakantan's Asura, International Seminar on Epic Narrative in World Literature, International Association of Comparative Literature, Society and Culture (IACLSC), Gandhinagar, Gujarat, and IGNCA Delhi, 15-16 April 2018. Conference proceedings published by IACLSC 2018, pp. 52.
• The Becoming of Ravana in Asura, Research Scholars' Day-Seminar, HSS Department IITK, 2018. Conference Proceedings published by HSS, IITK, pp. 11.

Membership of Professional Bodies

• Association for the Study of Marginalized Cultures of the World, 2022 onwards
• Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, 2018 onwards

Awards and Recognition

• Received the Michael and Madonna Marsden Travel Grant worth $1500 for PCA conference, April 2023.
• Academic Merit Scholarships from Ambedkar University Delhi
• National Eligibility Test (UGC-2015)