Good day, Febin Vijay. I'm Arjun. I've had a look through your background and your professional record. I'm interested in hearing more about your work and how you see yourself fitting in here with our faculty. Ready to start?

Please start by introducing your professional journey in academia.

Sure. My name is Doctor Feben Vijay and I am an assistant professor of English at Gal Gadias University, Greater Noida.

Completed my PhD from IIT partner where I researched for five years on Indian Crime friction, particularly focusing on women's crime friction. So basically what I was trying to look at is that crime fiction has historically been considered as a genre that is male dominated in genre in, in relation to characters, in relation to, uh, settings, all of that.

So the lot of research from, uh, reputed, uh, critics like uh, Jill Plain, for instance, uh, which says that even though women writers, uh, wrote crime fiction tell uh.

In the 19th and 18th centuries, most of their writings were more or less, uh, following the same tropes that were used by men, right? So these works more or less talk about the problem that is there that.

Genre was more or less mail defined and even when women writers wrote, it was just a difference of characterization that was taking place. So the characters were different, they were switched from male to female but more or less the themes remained the same. So this is what I am trying to locate through my research, how there is a new form or new strain of research that is coming out from India where a lot of women writers in India are using the.

Of crime friction as a vehicle for socio political critique and also as a vehicle for expressing feminist concerns through them. After my PhD from IoT partner, I worked in Galgotia's university. I joined the university on 2nd January 2025 and even now I'm working there as an Assistant professor of English and also as the Program Coordinator of MA English.

So as an assistant professor, I deal with a different English related course. There are courses within literature, different courses like British literature, American literature, uh, critical approaches, uh, research methods and methodology. I also teach MBA students, I teach them business communication. I teach BBA students communicative English. These are some of the courses that I'm taking here. I'm also the.

Some coordinator of MA English program here and I handle a small group of five people and I'm responsible for the day-to-day running of the MA English program here in Galgotias University.

Now, one of the reasons that I believe I'll be a very good fit as a faculty for VIT is that I do understand exactly how humanities functions in an institute that is technologically.

Reputed so because I have done my research from IIT Patna. I also served as a teaching assistant there as part of my PhD program for five years. So I have a clear understanding of him How Humanities.

Functions in a technology centered institute, uh.

Communication skills for engineers. All of these courses I've taught and even now I'm teaching introductory literature courses, literature courses and also other courses that have to do with basic communication skills. So, uh, that is about me.

Teaching students from various other disciplines, uh, mostly engineering students, you know, uh, courses like technical communication.

Thank you, Professor, for sharing a detailed overview of your academic background and current responsibilities. It’s clear that your focus on crime fiction through a socio-political and feminist lens is both timely and important. Additionally, your teaching experience across a wide range of courses demonstrates your versatility as an educator. Let's now examine some specific aspects of your credentials and skills in more depth.

So some of the main aspects that I focus on is teaching humanities within an institute that is not known for humanities, where I, like I said, I have a lot of experience in that because for five years I've taught engineering students how to work on literature courses, different communication courses. Training and placement related courses where you try to better their communication.

And apart from that, if you're talking about my skills, I would like to say that one of the primary ones is the ability to balance both teaching and research. And also I have been able to manage different administrative responsibilities as well. So I would say my top skill is to manage teaching, research and administrative responsibilities all in one go, and I've been doing that here.

At Calgotius University as well, because uh, I teach here around around 5:00 to 6:00. Courses I take for different programs, not just literature programs, also for other programs like MBA, uh, BBA, I take English proficiency courses for MCS students. So, umm, my teaching, uh, is not restricted to one particular discipline, which is one of the biggest traits that I can point out. Uh, apart from that, this, uh, also the fact that I have also been entrusted with a lot of administrator responsibilities. So even in this particular institute, I work as the program coordinator of the English department and I manage, like I said earlier, I manage a small group of five people. And, uh, again, I'm responsible for the day-to-day running of MA English program here. So, uh, I do not shy away from.

Administrator responsibilities to balance all of these at one go is something that I believe I am very good at and I can do that at VIT 2 I believe.

I appreciate the emphasis you've placed on your ability to balance teaching, research, and administrative responsibilities simultaneously while accommodating diverse student cohorts. Your multidisciplinary teaching approach and capacity to handle administrative tasks are indeed commendable. Building on this foundation, I would now like to focus on some of the key areas relevant to this role and your candidacy. Let's explore your expertise in research and teaching further. Specifically, we’ll delve into your skills in areas like Digital Humanities, Commonwealth Literature, and English Language Teaching, as well as your contributions to research through journal publications and consultancy/institutional projects. Shall we proceed?

Sure. So first of all to talk about different disciplines like digital humanities, Commonwealth literature, etcetera. I have experienced teaching most of these courses that are based on digital humanities, Commonwealth literature. So mostly digital humanities courses has to do with the how technology and literature or humanities in particular. You know.

Interact with each other how a lot of uh, technological advancements or technological research methods can be used in uh, digital, uh, humanities, in humanities discipline for that matter. For instance, we talk about uh, data mining, data extraction, data analysis, all of these how they can equally function well not just in technological disciplines, but even when it comes to literature when.

Comes to linguistics when it comes to philosophy and psychology and even other related disciplines for that matter. So this is something that I'm very, uh, comfortable with teaching. Apart from that, Commonwealth literature, like we all know, mostly deals with literature that focuses on. Countries that were once a part of the British Empire. Uh, exploding Britain itself, and again.

Literature from different countries, like South Asian countries, from Canada, from Australia, all of these countries, Africa. So these are again one of my key areas because I work as an assistant professor of English here at Kalgoorthy's university. And obviously digital humanities is something that we cannot.

Cannot exclude from curriculum, especially in the contemporary.

38 And if you look at, uh common with literature, it has been there for really long time. That is one of the major disciplines or sub disciplines within English.

Now talking about my research publications, uh, I have published four articles in, uh, Scopus index journals. Uh, out of that, three are already published and one is forthcoming. Uh, apart from that, I've also published a book review. Uh, so three of them are indexed by Web of Science and three of them by Scopus and one is forthcoming too. So our total of 4 publications since corpus.

Index journals and.

Most of these works focus on Indian popular culture and on Indian Crime friction because I was publishing these works as part of my research PhD program, so most of them have to do with. Using Indian Crime fiction as a genre of political critique, social critique, how it functions as a lens of.

Uh, feminist concerns through them, all of these things that, uh, I have dealt with in my research. Uh, apart from that, I also have written a book review for comparative literature studies. Uh, that has to do with a review of the book. Uh, that was mainly a manual for crime fiction, The Routledge companion to crime fiction. I've written a review of the book which was published in Comparative literature Studies which.

Or a medium of propagating.

As a journal by Pennsylvania State University. Apart from that I have a publication in.

AQ1 journal called Forum for World Literature Studies.

Where I talked about Indian Crime fiction again, and the other two publications I have, one is an IUP Journal of English Studies, which is again which was again part of Scopus when I published, and Rupka, that Journal of International Studies for Interdisciplinary Studies, that is also another journal. So these are my understandings of digital humanities. Of Commonwealth Literature. How comfortable I am with teaching these courses.

And also regarding some of my publications, uh, when it comes to reputed journals, not just any journals, but journals that are in text, in proper indexing platforms.

Thank you for such a detailed account of your experience and contributions, Professor. Your familiarity with Digital Humanities, particularly its intersection with data analysis techniques like data mining and their applications to literature and linguistics, adds valuable depth to your profile. Similarly, your expertise in Commonwealth Literature and your ability to discuss its historical and cultural contexts demonstrate your strength in delivering content critical to students. Your publication history in Scopus and Web of Science-indexed journals, especially your focus on Indian Crime Fiction as a lens for socio-political critique, feminist concerns, and your engagement with comparative literature, certainly reflects academic rigor and relevance. Let’s proceed to another vital component: your ability to guide student research and manage evaluation duties effectively. Could you elaborate on your experience with supervising student projects, your approach to evaluation, and how you integrate a structured teaching methodology into your work?

Sure. As I as I discussed earlier, I am the program coordinator of MA English program at Calcottius University. So till now I've gotten a chance to chances to mostly supervise masters students for their dissertations and also bachelor students for their projects. So these are two areas where I've been able to help out. One is to bachelor students.

Fix And the second is for master students in terms of writing their short dissertation. So for the final uh semester of MA English program, we have uh 4 credits that is allotted to students for writing a dissertation. So 4 credits out of the 80 total credits that is uh reserved for an MA English program. Is given for that dissertation, and for that I will supervise multiple students who work.

Explore a lot of areas with them. I would like to supervise students who are from my area of research and I would like to supervise other students who are from different other areas as well so that I too can gather more knowledge and be active in research in other fields as well. So that's what I have to say when it comes to supervision, roles and guidance of students.

On various different fields related to literature, uh, now in terms of PST guidance, that is something that I'm very excited and I'm very much looking forward to doing as well because, uh, till now I've been mostly supervising bachelors and masters students and I am thrilled to and looking forward to do the same with PhD students. And I would like to.

Your supervisory experience with bachelor and master’s students, particularly through initiatives like the MA English dissertation program, highlights your skills in guiding students in academic writing and research methodology. Your enthusiasm for expanding this mentorship to PhD candidates and exploring diverse research fields is commendable. Could you now share your approach and philosophy toward student evaluation and assessment? Specifically, how do you ensure fairness, rigor, and constructive feedback during evaluations of coursework and research projects?

Sure. I make sure that evaluation are done on in a bias free manner and that I believe is one of the most important things and something that upholds the integrity of each and every faculty member and that is very important to me, something that I stress upon a lot. I make sure that. Every candidate is treated in an equal manner and regardless of.

Uh, how they behave in the classroom or whatever different problems or, uh, ruckus that they create. I make sure that when it comes to evaluation platforms, I treat each and every student fairly only on the basis of what they have written on their evaluation sheets. Second is through active classroom participation. Active classroom participation is something that I stress a lot.

And most of my classrooms where I believe that it's almost impossible to contact a literature class, you know, in a lecture only format or in a monotonous manner. I believe active student participation is something that is very important in literature classrooms or even for that matter in any other disciplines that are related to literature.

Or English classrooms, Language learning classrooms.

All of them, participation is extremely important, so I make sure that. Active student participation also gets rewarded in the evaluation process. Apart from that, there are assignments, discussion forums that we hold. Different online activities that we give on the basis of which we evaluate students at our current university and all of these whether it's assigned.

Moments, whether it's discussion forums, active student participation in the classroom.

Correcting their papers or evaluating their papers without any sort of bias towards students, making sure that it's done in a proper manner is very important, like I said, in upholding the integrity of you as a teacher. So that is something that I stress upon a lot and I do that myself and I.

Make sure that my team that I have in our current university of five members who work under me, I make sure that they follow the same as well. So that is something that I'm extremely careful of.

Your approach to student evaluation, emphasizing fairness, active classroom participation, and integrity, showcases a principled methodology well-suited for fostering an equitable and engaging learning environment. Furthermore, your emphasis on rewarding active engagement and integrating diverse activities, such as forums and assignments, reflects a strong commitment to holistic student development. Lastly, I'd like to touch upon your experience with industry collaboration or consultancy. Have you been involved in any projects, workshops, or collaborations that bridge academic insight with industry application? If so, could you elaborate on those?

Sorry to interrupt, we're down to the last 5 minutes.

Sure. So, umm, when we talk about collaborations, mostly my collaborations have been more or less academic in nature. Uh, all the collaborations that we have done in, uh, during my research time at IIT partner have been with uh, different universities from India and from abroad, some of the most reputed institutes from India and from abroad, uh, when you talk about. Umm, collaborations that are not academic in nature and industry oriented. That is something that I haven't done. But right now at our university, Galgodius University, we are trying to strike up some partnerships with some external agencies where we will be, we will be able to give our students certifications on the basis of a different industry collaboration. So.

That is something that we are actively working on in our university, uh, a mixed grading system where we bring in industry experts and make sure we give expert talks from them. Apart from that, we do organize regular workshops from industry experts on a weekly basis at Kalkota University. So almost every Sunday we have a session. That is conducted online.

Through zoom, so we had sessions on SEO optimization, uh, we had different sessions on AI and, uh, workforce. We have had sessions on public speaking. So for these sessions, even for public speaking, we've brought in soft skill trainers from different industries. Uh, so these are things that we have been actively doing. And we are also looking forward to.

Uh, make sure that we bring in more collaborations from outside and also find a way so that we can accommodate these collaborations, give the students with the certifications, and also make sure that these certifications are also a part of the grading pattern within our institution. So that is something that we are actively working on. And I have been involved with collaborations on a weekly basis from different.

Industry oriented people, uh, like I talked about the SEO optimization workshop that we conducted with industry experts, some of the freelance, uh, developers out there, we have had collaborations with different startup founders talk about business because at the end of the day, I serve in an institute where. There are multiple disciplines and I also have to teach multiple disciplines.

So I cannot just think of my, my own discipline, which is literature and communication. I have to bring in, uh, students to help MBA students, uh, for collaboration with all of these different business aspects and business, uh, leaders. So all of these are happening on a weekly basis in our university. And some of the collaborations are also in the pipeline in the sense that, uh, we are trying to.

Uh, you know, reach agreement with different, uh, particip participatory bodies regarding the same.

Uh, I think we're almost done with time. Uh, I would have allowed to ask some questions.

It's evident that your efforts to incorporate interdisciplinary collaboration and industry perspective into academia are well-structured and forward-thinking. Your engagement in organizing workshops on topics like SEO, AI, and public speaking, as well as your vision to integrate industry certifications into student curricula, reflects your commitment to enhancing the employability and skillsets of students across various disciplines. Professor, we have now thoroughly explored your credentials, including your teaching philosophy, research expertise, student guidance, evaluation methodologies, and cross-disciplinary collaborations. Is there anything additional you’d like to share or any questions you have before we conclude?

But I think for the time being, this is pretty much it.

Yes, I am ready to end the interview. Thank you so much.

Understood, Professor. Before we conclude, could you please confirm explicitly if you're ready to end the interview?