Gaura Narayan

Gaura Narayan is an Associate Professor of Literature at Purchase College SUNY, specializing in British Romanticism, postcolonial literature and culture, gender studies, and narrative theory. She received her PhD from Columbia University in 1998 and has taught at Purchase College since 1996.

• Education:
  • BA (Honors), University of Delhi
  • MA, MPhil, PhD, Columbia University

Research explores intersections between Romantic-era British literature and colonial/postcolonial South Asian narratives, with a focus on gendered power dynamics and imperial historiography. Her 2010 monograph, Real and Imagined Women in British Romanticism, examines gender’s role in Romantic texts, while her 2025 article in Comparative Literature analyzes imperial discourses around the Black Hole of Calcutta.

Publications span critical analyses of Rudyard Kipling, Phoolan Devi, and Virginia Woolf, alongside contributions to anthologies like Narrative Beginnings (2008) and 100 Years of A Passage to India (2024). Current projects investigate British imperial imagination in 1757-1857 India.

Awards include the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (2022-2023) and multiple Columbia/Delhi University fellowships.

Teaching includes courses on Romanticism, Victorian poetry, postcolonial South Asian literature, and narrative theory. She emphasizes connections between Britain’s imperial legacy and contemporary global power structures.