About Shataparni (Titir) Bhattacharya

Education

Ph.D. English, Indiana University Bloomington (current)
M.A. English, Jadavpur University Kolkata (2021)
B.A. English, Jadavpur University Kolkata (2019)

Titir Bhattacharya researches representations of feminine monstrosity in Restoration and Eighteenth Century drama. Her dissertation centers the early commercial actresses to read monstrosity in play-texts and on stage—mediated by the vectors of gender, sexuality, and class—as either revealing the identities, behaviors, bodies, and positionalities that needed disciplining to maintain the period’s fictions of stability, or as offering agential articulations of reform, alternate possibilities, and boundary crossing, in response to social violence. She is the Graduate Assistant for Theory Theater Performance and maintains the website for this initiative (2026 - present).

At IU, Titir has completed a Ph.D. minor in Gender Studies and a Ph.D. minor in Digital Humanities. She is currently working on her dissertation, while pursuing a certificate in Digital Humanities. She has received the Karma Lochrie Prize for Best Essay in Gender and/or Sexuality (2025), the Lawlis-Duchovnay Graduate Travel Award (2024, 2025), and the Albert Wertheim Award for Best Essay in Drama and Performance (2023).

Teaching Experience

Fall 2026 - Spring 2027
Associate Instructor, Indiana University Bloomington
Instructor of record for IU's Intensive Writing course, ENG-L 203 Introduction to Drama. Course focus on "the body on page and on stage" centering corporeality and embodiment within the dramatic genre. 

Summer 2026 / Summer 2024
Associate Instructor, Indiana University Bloomington
Instructor of record for IU's intensive six-week composition course for the Groups Scholars program, ENG-W 131 (Groups) Reading, Writing, and Inquiry I.

Fall 2025 - Spring 2026
Associate Instructor, Indiana University Bloomington
Instructor of record for ENG-W 171 Digital Literacy and Composition ("Audacious Women"). This course begins at the English Restoration of monarchy in 1660, which saw the reopening of playhouses after eighteen years and the appearance of the first English actresses on the public stage. A fundamental assumption of the course, then, is that the modern-day "audacious woman" emerged in England, 1660, as the first actress. Students read and analyzed several primary texts of the period, including (among others) metatheatrical material such as excerpts from the diary of Samuel Pepys, prefatory materials to play-texts that laud or condemn actresses, and antitheatrical pamphlets. At the same time, students were asked to consider how the digital echoes of the early actress's life (in the form of representations, interpretations, and distortions born out of modern engagement with theatrical history and scholarship) shape the stories we tell about gender and femininity today. To learn about digital embodiment, students explored archives and museums on campus, watched films, and engaged with internet "content creation." As a composition and digital literacy course, students were urged to borrow the rhetorical power of the audacious woman for their own purposes, creating digital deliverables, such as websites, blogs, videos, and podcasts, using Adobe's creative and professional tools. 

Fall 2025
Teaching Intern, under Dr. Penelope Anderson
Completed a teaching internship under Dr. Penelope Anderson for ENG-L 389 Feminisms in and out of Time. Taught two texts, designed and graded one assignment, and produced a sample syllabus for future courses. 

Summer 2025
Associate Instructor, Indiana University Bloomington
Instructor of record for IU's online first-year composition course, ENG-W 131 (Online) Analytical Reading, Writing, and Inquiry. Course focus on "Monstrous Women" using texts, films, and theory. 

Fall 2024
Assistant Instructor, under Dr. Justin Hodgeson
Assistant Instructor of ENG-W 171 Projects in Digital Literacy and Composition. Grading and discussion. One section with class size of 96 students. 

Spring 2024 / Spring 2025
Associate Instructor, Indiana University Bloomington
Instructor of record for IU's first-year composition course, ENG-W 131 (for Beginner Writers) Reading, Writing, and Inquiry. Course focus on analytical and argumentative writing, causal analyses, solution-oriented argumentation, and research skills. Three sections taught over two semesters, with class sizes of 15 students each.

Fall 2022 - Fall 2023
Associate Instructor, Indiana University Bloomington
Instructor of record for IU's first-year composition course, ENG-W 131 Analytical Reading, Writing, and Inquiry. Course theme “othering and isolation” focusing on race, gender, and sexuality. Four sections taught over three semesters, with class sizes of 23 students each.