My main research interests lie in colonial and postcolonial literature, especially South Asian writing in English, British Asian history and literature, Indian popular cinema and its representation in South Asian fiction, Salman Rushdie, and African literature as they relate to colonial and postcolonial discourse analysis. I am also interested in nineteenth-century, twentieth-century and contemporary British fiction, especially the development of the novel.
Since joining The Open University in 2008, I have been working on two major cross institutional projects, ‘Making Britain: South Asian Visions of Home and Abroad, 1870-1950’ (2007-10) and its follow-on, ‘Beyond the Frame: Indian British Connections, 1858-1950’ (2011-12), both funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Led by Professor Susheila Nasta, the projects explore South Asian contributions to Britain’s literary, cultural and political life in this earlier period to challenge the notion that British culture only started diversifying after World War II, raising important questions about citizenship, Britishness and the conceptualisation of a national culture. The projects produced a variety of different outputs on multiple platforms and include a database, websites, books, essays, workshops, conference, seminar series and exhibitions to reach different audiences.
Designed to further increase its public outreach, ‘Beyond the Frame’ toured a revised and expanded facsimile panel exhibition to seven cities in India in partnership with the British Library, British Council, National Archives of India, and World Collections Programme. The tour was accompanied by a series of workshops, seminars and lectures for school and college students, as well as talks and events for the general public. The project also produced teaching materials and a new learning website, ‘Asians in Britain’ (www.bl.uk/asiansinbritain), featuring digitised source materials, in partnership with the British Library. ‘Beyond the Frame’ was elected an RCUK and AHRC impact case study and was featured in the AHRC brochure, The UK and India- A Partnership for Research.This follow-on project focussed on visual archives documenting this early South Asian presence in Britain, which will be highlighted in a forthcoming photographic history of Asian Britain by Susheila Nasta with Florian Stadtler (Autumn 2013).
I am an active member of the OU-based Postcolonial literature research group, the Ferguson Centre and the Postcolonial Studies Association. I also work as reviews editor for the magazine of international contemporary writing, Wasafiri (www.wasafiri.org/). I am also a guest blogger for Untold Lives: Stories from the Past and have also written for the Huffington Post, UK.
Monographs and Books:
Fiction, Film and Indian Popular Cinema: Salman Rushdie’s novels and the cinematic imagination, Routledge Research in Postcolonial Literatures (forthcoming, New York: Routledge, 2013)
Asian Britain: A photographic history, S. Nasta with F Stadtler (in press; London: Westbourne Press, 2013)
South Asians and the Shaping of Britain, 1870-1950: A Sourcebook, ed. Ruvani Ranasinha with Rehana Ahmed, Sumita Mukherjee and Florian Stadtler (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013)
Articles in peer-reviewed journals:
‘Terror, Globalisation and the Individual in Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown’, Journal of Postcolonial Writing 45.2 (2009), pp. 191-199
‘Cultural Connections: Lagaan and its audience responses’, Third World Quarterly 26.3 (2005): 517-524. Reprinted in Bainbridge, Emma, ed. Connecting Cultures (London: Routledge, 2007)
Edited journal special issues:
Guest Editor Wasafiri: International Contemporary Writing; Special Issue ‘Britain and India - Cross-Cultural encounters’ 27.2 (Routledge, June 2012)
Co-editor with Ole Laursen and Brian Rock Journal of Postcolonial Writing Special Issue ‘Information Technologies and the Postcolonial’ (forthcoming Routledge Sep 2013)
Chapters in books and edited collections:
‘Calling from London, Talking to India: South Asian networks at the BBC and the case of G V Desani’ (co-authored with E Bainbridge), India in Britain: South Asian Networks and Connections, 1858-1950, ed. Susheila Nasta (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013)
‘Britain’s forgotten volunteers: South Asian contributions to the two world wars’, South Asians and the Shaping of Britain, 1870-1950: A Sourcebook, ed. Ruvani Ranasinha with Rehana Ahmed, Sumita Mukherjee and Florian Stadtler (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013)
‘Rushdie’s Hero as Audience: Interpreting India through Indian Popular Cinema’, Postcolonial Audiences: Readers, Viewers and Reception, eds Bethan Benwell, James Procter and Gemma Robinson (New York: Routledge 2012)
‘“For every O’Dwyer […] there is a Shaheed Udham Singh” – the Caxton Hall Assassination of Michael O’Dwyer’, South Asian Resistances in Britain, 1870–1950, eds Rehana Ahmed and Sumita Mukherjee (London: Continuum, 2011)
‘Nobody from Bombay should be without a basic film vocabulary’: Midnight’s Children and the visual culture of Indian Popular Cinema’, Rushdie and Visual Culture, ed. Ana Mendes (New York: Routledge 2011)
‘Nargis and Aurora Zogoiby - Imaging Mother and Nation in Mehboob Khan’s Mother India and Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh’, Once Upon A Time in Bollywood: The Global Swing of Hindi Cinema, eds Gubir Jolly, Zenia Wadhwani and Deborah Barretto (Toronto: TSAR Publications, 2007)
Biographical and Bibliographical contributions to The Cambridge Companion to Salman Rushdie, ed. Abdulrazak Gurnah (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
‘India and Indian Diaspora: Images and Perceptions – Films’ Diaspora and Transnational Communities (Delhi: Indira Gandhi Open University, India, 2006)
Digital Media:
Interactive ‘Asians in Britain’ website and timeline (co-authored with S Nasta and R Visram in collaboration with the British Library), Nov. 2011, <www.bl.uk/asiansinbritain>
Interactive timeline ‘South Asians making Britain, 1858-1950’, The Guardian website, 10/09/2010 <www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/sep/10/south-asians-making-britain> (with S Pulham, L Villani, R Visram and S Nasta)
Database ‘Making Britain: How South Asians shaped the Nation, 1870-1950’ <www.open.ac.uk/makingbritain> (co-authored and edited with the ‘Making Britain’ project team S Nasta, E Boehmer, R Visram, R Ranasinha, S Mukherjee and R Ahmed) (Sep 2010)
German language learning CD-Rom ‘German Starters’, 2007
Blogs:
‘The Indian Sepoy in the trenches’, ‘Untold Lives’ Blog, British Library, (Nov 2012), <http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/untoldlives/2012/11/the-indian-sepoy-in-the-trenches.html>
‘Muslims Protest Against H. G. Wells Book in 1930s Britain’, with Rehana Ahmed, Huffington Post UK, (Sep 2012)<http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/rehana-ahmed/muslims-protest-against-h_b_1895942.html>
‘The Indian Comforts Fund (1939-45) – Humanitarian relief work for Indian soldiers in Europe’, ‘Untold Lives’ Blog, British Library, (May 2012), <http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/untoldlives/2012/05/the-indian-comforts-fund-1939-45-humanitarian-relief-work-for-indian-soldiers-in-europe.html>
Other:
12-panel facsimile touring exhibition ‘Beyond the Frame: India in Britain, 1858-1950’, partnered by The Open University, The British Library, British Council, British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum and National Archives of India (co-authored and curated with P Brook, S Nasta, R Visram, and R R Arrowsmith), touring India 2011-12
11-panel facsimile touring exhibition ‘South Asians Making Britain, 1858-1950’, partnered by The Open University and the British Library, September 2010 (co-authored with S Nasta, E Boehmer, R Ranasinha, R Ahmed, S Mukherjee, R Visram and P Brook), touring UK 2010-12
Reviews:
See also Open Research Online for further details of Florian Stadtler’s research publications.
