Linn Cary Mehta

Lcarymehta@aol.com
139 East 79th St.
New York, N.Y. 10021
Tel: (212) 737-7487
Fax: (212) 472-7220

Education:

Ph.D., Comparative Literature, Columbia University , New York, NY, 2004. Dissertation defense passed: May 2002. Major fields of interest: Postcolonial literature, modernism, poetry.

M.Phil., Comparative Literature, Columbia University , New York, NY, 1989. Oral examination passed: December 1988. Fields covered: Postcolonial literature (Major field), Yeats (Major author), Literature and Society (Theory; Minor field)

M.A., English Language and Literature , St. Hilda's College, Oxford, England, 1988. B.A., 1979. Special subjects: Spenser and Milton; Literary Theory.

B.A., English and French Literature , Yale University, New Haven, CT, 1977 (awarded distinction in major).

Freie Universität , Berlin: Courses, Sept. - June, 1980.
Diplôme de Civilisation Française , Sorbonne, Paris: 1976.
Universidad Catolica , Lima, Peru: Courses, July - Sept., 1975.

"Poetry and Decolonization: Yeats, Tagore, Senghor, Césaire and Neruda, 1920-1950"

The dissertation explores the relationship between European literary heritage and native experience in the work of five early twentieth century poets, and looks at the ways in which their poetry anticipates patterns in the development of postcolonial literatures outside of Europe. The intense interaction between poetry and politics in a period of national state formation, the different national and racial identities of each poet, and their common experiences of decolonization, place and displacement, are examined in relation to their search for linguistic and cultural self-definition and freedom from European political hegemony.

Dissertation sponsored by Professor Edward Said.

Defense Committee: Professors Maryse Condé, Jean Franco, Joseph Slaughter, and Gauri Viswanathan.

Undergraduate Thesis:

"The Use of Symbol in the Poetry of Baudelaire and Yeats"

The thesis examines the poetry of Baudelaire and Yeats in terms of the relationship, for the writer, of language to reality, a question that is not specific to a single period of art, but which does characterize that period. My reading of the poetry, and its implications, concern the internalization of reference and the internal tension and quality of reality that constitute symbol. The relation of a form of literature to an age in a place (Europe) is the relation between two sign systems--a parallel relationship, analogical and form-giving--unlike the relationship between poetry and reality, which is a relation between a sign system and a non-sign sytem, asymmetric and non-tautological.

Undergraduate honors thesis sponsored by Professors Paul de Man and R.W.B. Lewis.

Barnard College , English Department, 2000-02:

Lecturer, Fall 2002:
First-year Seminar and First-year English

Associate, 2000-2002:
First-year Seminar and First-year English (Spring 2002)
"Reinventing Literary History: The Americas" : a required first-year course emphasizing writing and reading skills.

Vassar College , English Department, 1994-97:

Adjunct Assistant Professor (1996-97) :
"The Novel in English after 1945" : Beckett, Nabokov, Pynchon, Achebe, Gordimer, Naipaul, Rushdie and Morrison (Fall '96);
"Women's Lives and Women's Literature" (Spring '97)

Adjunct Instructor (1994-96):
Gender, Work and Social Change" in the interdisciplinary College Course Program (Team taught, Spring '95);
"The Art of Reading and Writing" (Freshman course):
— "Self and Other" (Fall '94-'96, and Spring '96 and '97)

Yale University, College Seminar Program:

Adjunct Instructor, (Fall 1993):
"Poetry and Decolonization, 1920-1950"

Columbia College , Core Curriculum:

Preceptor (Spring 1991 and 1992):
Literature Humanities
1991-2: awarded Presidential Scholarship for teaching.

Malcolm-King Community College , Harlem, New York City:

Instructor (Spring and Fall 1986)
Freshman Composition II (curriculum based on Whitman, Mckay, Hughes, Hurston, Ellison, Morrison.)

Teaching Interests:

Nineteenth and twentieth century Comparative Literature; Literature of the Americas; Core curriculum and historical approaches to European and postcolonial literatures, especially in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and India; Poetry; Modernism and Post-modernism; Literary Theory; Cultural Development; Women's Studies.

Research Interests:

Twentieth Century Postcolonial Poetry
Yeats's Echoes: Poetry, Nation, and the Irish Tradition
Literatures of the Americas; Literatures of the Indian Subcontinent
System, Symbol, Sign: Poetic Meaning and Reference

Languages:

Proficiency in French, Spanish, German;
Rading knowledge of Italian, Latin and Ancient Greek;
Introductory Bengali and Sanskrit.

Previous Experience:

The Ford Foundation: Assistant to the President (1980-82) and Assistant Program Officer, Education and Culture Program (1982-85), responsible for program activities concerned with expanding opportunities for women and minorities in higher education and with the preservation of traditional cultures worldwide.
Council on Foreign Relations: Rapporteur, Fall 1980.
Wissenschaftzentrum Berlin: Research Assistant, 1979-80.
Aspen Institute Berlin: Rapporteur, 1979-80.
Minority Rights Group, London: Research Assistant, Summer 1979.

Current Board memberships:

American Friends of St. Hilda's College, Oxford (Co-Chair, 1995 - 2002).
Center for Traditional Music and Dance, N.Y.C. (Vice-Chair, 1992 - 2002).
New York Society Library, N.Y.C. (2002 - ).
The Writings of James Fenimore Cooper Advisory Committee (1998 - ).

Professional organizations:

MLA (Modern Languages Association)
ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association)
SALA (South Asian Literature Association)

Other Interests:

Singer (Member of professional choir at St. Bartholemew's Church in 2000; Bach Cantata Singers; recitals of arias, lieder and art songs, especially Mozart, Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Fauré).
Long-distance runner (New York Marathon, November, 2000).
Writing poetry. Travel. International development.

References:

Edward Said, University Professor, Columbia University
Jean Franco, Professor Emeritus, Department of Comparative Literature, Columbia University
Maragaret Vandenburg, Director of First-Year English, Barnard College
Maryse Condé, Professor of French and Chair, Center for French and Francophone studies, Columbia University
Gauri Viswanathan, Class of 1933 Professor in the Humanities and Director of the Southern Asian Institute, Columbia University
To request references, please email Lcarymehta@aol.com .