Divya N.

Background

About Divya N.

My love of speech, script, color, and sound began with the squeak of white chalk on black slate, as a child growing up in India. I hold 19 years of experience in higher education and 15 years of experience teaching various topics in the humanities. I received my PhD in English Literature from University of Pennsylvania in 2021. My research focuses on the reception of Indic, African, and Mediterranean antiquities in early modern Anglophone literature and culture, exploring questions of religion, race, and civilization through literary form. My book is entitled Classical Reception and the Problem of the Color Line in Early Modern English Literature. I am a visual artist working in different media to express my creative vision. My artwork is collected by private patrons. I am committed to culturally, environmentally, and ethically sustainable framing practices. As a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Public Humanities at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, I work with public libraries and museums to leverage my academic expertise, relationship-building skills, and social justice experience to create and deliver innovative and impactful programs that connect the humanities to contemporary issues and diverse audiences.