Apala Das

Dr. Apala Das is a Research Fellow at Bilkent University, specializing in 20th-century global anglophone literatures, modernist poetry and poetics, and postsecularism studies. Her academic work bridges postcolonial theory, South Asian literatures, and political theology within transnational frameworks.

Her educational background includes a PhD from the University of Toronto, completed in 2024.

Dr. Das's research centers on modernist asceticism as a critical lens for examining literary experiments by figures like Rabindranath Tagore, Hilda Doolittle, Aurobindo Ghose, and May Sinclair. She investigates how these writers negotiated ascetical ideals within colonial and postcolonial contexts, connecting literary form to biopolitics, secular citizenship, and ethno-nationalist ideologies. Her approach synthesizes postcolonial ethics, comparative literature, and political theology to analyze transnational modernist aesthetics.

Her publications from 2018-2024 reveal consistent engagement with mobility, hybridity, and spiritual dimensions across literary traditions. Early work analyzed mobility in ethnography and Romantic-era travel, evolving toward contemporary meta-minimalist fiction and systematic studies of asceticism in global modernism.

Dr. Das has received significant recognition for her scholarship:

• Ontario Graduate Scholarship (awarded twice)
• Chancellor Jackman Junior Fellowship from the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto
• Khashu Award for Tagore Studies from the Institute for South Asia Studies, UC Berkeley

As a recent PhD graduate, she has not yet taken on formal graduate advising roles. Her research has been supported by competitive doctoral grants including the Ontario Graduate Scholarships and Chancellor Jackman Junior Fellowship, with current work funded through the Bilkent University/British Institute at Ankara Joint Fellowship.

Dr. Das is actively developing her book manuscript "Modernist Asceticisms: Discipline, Form, and the Postsecular in the Transnational Twentieth Century" while participating in academic initiatives like the 2024 book launch for "Mind and Embodiment in Late Victorian Literature".