Julie B. Mehta
Toronto 43° 39' 12.53" N, 79° 23' 2.16" W Academia/Research Journalism Person
Biography
Julie B. Mehta teaches at University College, University of Toronto. Her course, Asian Cultures in Canada, is endowed by Chancellor Emerita Senator Vivienne Poy. Mehta is an author and journalist specializing in Southeast Asia.
Early life and education
Dr. Mehta holds a Master's degree and Ph.D. in English Literature and South Asian Studies and is a gold medallist from Jadavpur University Calcutta. At the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Toronto, her Ph.D. dissertation is entitled "Retrieving Precolonial Identity through the Images of the Divine Feminine in Waterscapes of Postcolonial Fiction."
Academic career
Jan- Dec 2011 Lecturer, “Voices in Canadian Writing” (UNI 218S, Canadian Studies, University of Toronto).
2006-Dec 2011 Lecturer, “Asian Cultures and Literatures in Canada.” (UNI307Y), Canadian Studies, University of Toronto).
Jan-Apr 2011 Lecturer, “Single Indian Writer Premchand” (HIND 3610, Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, York University, Toronto).
Winter 2010 Course Instructor, ENGB05, Critically Thinking about Literature, Department of English, University of Toronto at Scarborough. Fall 2009 Course Instructor, ENGD57H3 F (final year English Specialist Students), In-depth Study of the works of a Single Canadian Author “Michael Ondaatje: Narrator as the Private I.” Department of English, University of Toronto at Scarborough.
Summer 2009 Course Instructor, Effective Writing, Department of English, University of Toronto.
Course Instructor, Critical Essay Writing Skills, Department of English, University of Toronto.
Journalistic career
Journalist Grade A1, in the early-1980s in the Australian Public Service, Canberra. Worked for two ministries --Minister for Veterans' Affairs (Australia) (that dealt mainly with Australian Vietnam War Veterans), and the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Editor, Technocrat, a technology and business magazine of the Sterling Newspaper group, Bombay, in the mid-1980s.
Editor, Connoisseur's Asia, a Singapore-based literary, arts and culture magazine, in the early 1990s.
Features Editor, Times Periodicals, Singapore, in the mid-1990s.
Literary reviewer of contemporary literature and interviewer of Booker Prize winners and celebrated authors such as Arundhati Roy, Rohinton Mistry, Ben Okri, David Malouf, Norman Mailer, Mario Vargas Llosa, Christopher J. Koch and many others. Julie was also a feature writer on religion, arts, and cultures of Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, India and Cambodia; and columnist for The Nation, Bangkok, and The Straits Times, Singapore.
Marriage and children
She is married to journalist and author Harish C. Mehta.
Published works
- Hun Sen: Strongman of Cambodia co-authored with Harish C. Mehta (Graham Brash, 1999)
- Dance of Life: The Mythology, History, and Politics of Cambodian Culture (Graham Brash, 2001)
- Bangkok: A Walk Through the Market. Bangkok: A&M Media, 2002.
Translation for Theatre Member, Translation Unit, Pleiades Theatre, Toronto: Translated Rabindranath Tagore’s play, The Post Office, from Bengali to English. The play was performed in Toronto in May 7 –June 4, 2011, as the Year of India in Canada celebrations.
Book Chapters:
“Ondaatje’s Impertinent Voices: Tracking Family Ties to Remember History.” In Australasia-Asia: Change, Conflict and Convergence. Ed. Cynthia van den Dreissen. Swan-Longmans, 2010.
“Reconfiguring the Feminine: The Real, Reel, and Riel Life of Neang Seda (Sita) in the Khmer Ramayana.” In The International Ramayana Collection. Ed Gauri Krishnan, National Heritage Board, Singapore, 2010.
“Rabindranath Tagore’s Global Soul: In Flight between Nationalism and Liberalism.” Ed. Kathleen O’Connel and Joseph O’Connel. Vishwabharati University, Kolkata, India, Special Issue, 2009.
“Being Gaijin and Being Female in the Sakoku Culture of Japan: Cultural Exile in Meira Chand’s The Gossamer Fly.” In Writing Asia: The Literatures in Englishes. Volume 1: From the Inside. Ed. Edwin Thumboo, Ethos Books, Singapore, 2007.
“Cultural Collision in the Waterscapes of Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” In L’eau et les mondes indiens (Water and the Indian Worlds), under the aegis of SARI, Jonzac, France, 2007.
“The Ramayana in Thai and Khmer Culture.” Chapter in Ramayana Revisited. Ed. Mandakranta Bose. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.