Dr. Ushashi Dasgupta

Biography

Ushashi Dasgupta is an Associate Professor and Fellow Tutor in English at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. She specializes in the study of nineteenth-century fiction and the relationship between literature and concepts of space, place, and architecture. Her research delves into the nature and development of the novel, particularly how global histories influence reading practices. As a trustee of the Dickens Society from 2021 to 2024, she serves on the editorial board of Dickens Quarterly. Her published work, 'Charles Dickens Properties Fiction: Lodger World', released by Oxford University Press in 2020, examines the significance of tenancy in relation to literary imagination and how Dickens’s depictions of rented spaces challenge the notion of the cozy Victorian home. Currently, she is working on a project regarding nineteenth-century housing disasters, collaborating with colleagues from the English, Geography, and History departments to lead the Rent Cultures Network, which aims to explore the cultural implications of rent. At Pembroke, she teaches various courses on literature spanning the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries and supervises undergraduate dissertations. Her lectures cover a broad array of topics including Victorian literature and its intersections with urban spaces, detective fiction, and world literature.

Research Interests

Courses