Goutam Karmakar teaches at the Department of English, University of Hyderabad, in India, with affiliations and research positions at the Multidisciplinary Environmental Studies in the Humanities, University of Cologne, Germany, and the Faculty of Arts and Design, Durban University of Technology, South Africa. He has received several fellowships, including the Alexander von Humboldt in Germany, National Research Foundation awards in South Africa, and the MIASA Individual Fellowship in Ghana. His research spans Global South literature, postcolonial and decolonial studies, cultural studies and environmental humanities. Karmakar edits the journal Global South Literary Studies and the Routledge book series South Asian Literature in Focus.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9119-9486

Research focus

• Literature of the Global South
• Global Anglophone Literature
• Postcolonial Studies
• Decolonial Studies
• Environmental Humanities
• Cultural Studies

Environmental Justice and Decolonial Activism in the Global South. Eds. Goutam Karmakar and Sule Emmanuel Egya. (under contract with Springer Nature)

Nation and Narration: South Asian Literature and the Making and Remaking of National Consciousness. Eds. Goutam Karmakar and Nukhbah Taj Langah. London: Routledge, 2026. 

Literature, Activism and Transformative Learning. Ed. By Goutam Karmakar. London: Routledge, 2026. 

Ecology, Decoloniality, and African Literature. Eds. Goutam Karmakar and Deirdre C. Byrne. New York: Routledge, 2026.

Nation, Nationalism and Indian Hindi Cinema. Eds. Goutam Karmakar and Pippa Catterall. New York: Routledge, 2025. 

Modernist Transitions: Cultural Encounters between British and Bangla Modernist Fiction from 1910s to 1950s. Eds.Subhadeep Ray and Goutam Karmakar. New Delhi: Bloomsbury, 2023.

Narratives of Trauma in South Asian Literature. Eds. Goutam Karmakar and Zeenat Khan. London: Routledge, 2023.

The City Speaks: Urban Spaces in Indian Literature. Eds. Subashish Bhattacharjee and Goutam Karmakar. London: Routledge, 2022.      

Special/guest edited issues:

2026. Guest co-editor of “Decolonial Hope: Planetary sustainability and literary responses,” special issue of Journal of Postcolonial Writing. https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjpw20/62/1

2025. Guest co-editor of “Nation, Nationalism and Indian Hindi Cinema,” special issue of National Identities.  https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cnid20/27/1-2

2024.Guest co-editor of “Ecology, Decoloniality, and African Literature,” special issue of the journal Scrutiny2. https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rscr20/28/2

2024. Guest editor of “Literature, Activism and Transformative Learning,” special issue of Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa.  https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcwr20/36/2

2023. Guest co-editor of “Capitalism, Anthropocene, and literature of the Global South,” special issue of the Journal of Narrative and Language Studies.  https://nalans.com/index.php/nalans/issue/view/21

Peer-Reviewed/Academic Articles:

2026. Capitalism and Environmental Injustice: Decoloniality and Ecological Education in Ambikasutan Mangad’s Swarga, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 33(1): 155–176. Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isae050

2026.  Slow Unliveability and Militant Ecologies: Violence, Radicalism, and Decolonial Struggle in Don Veta’s Guerrilla of the Niger Delta. English Academy Review42(2): 5–26. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10131752.2026.2662790

2026.    Colonial Modernity and Epistemic Hegemony: Rethinking Environmentalism in Kamala Markandaya’s The Coffer Dams. South Asian Review 47(2): 201–220. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02759527.2024.2445938

2026. Existential fungibility and war to be human in the Niger Delta: remaindered life and decolonial reconstruction in Kaine Agary’s Yellow–Yellow. African Identities: 1–20. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14725843.2026.2632690

2026. Living in/as Waste: Developmentalism, ‘Slow’ Death and Hope in Macaulay Mowarin’s Veiled Currents.” Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 38(1): 79–91. Link: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1013929X.2026.2619250

2026. Indigeneity, developmentalism, and sustainability: trajectories of the Jarawas of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in Pankaj Sekhsaria’s The Last Wave and Islands in Flux. Contemporary South Asia: 1–19. [co-authored]. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09584935.2026.2619075

2026. Indigenous Worldviews and Decoloniality in The Deep: Warli Art and the Politics of Decanonization. South Asian Review, 1–22. [co-authored]. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02759527.2026.2673756

2025. Arguing for Decolonial Repair: Petrostate, Environmental Injustice, and Decompositional Politics in Helon Habila’s Oil on Water. Journal of Narrative and Language Studies 13(27): 106-124. Link: https://www.nalans.com/index.php/nalans/article/view/1108

2025. Unfolding Necro-Realities: Politics of Perceiving Human Lives in Toxic African Geographies.” Peace Review 37(4): 654–69. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10402659.2025.2603956

2025.   Arboreal Dialogics and Environmental Activism: Multispecies Entanglements in Ben Okri’s Every Leaf a Hallelujah. Scrutiny2 29(3): 50–70. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/18125441.2025.2507026

2025. Infrastructural Violence, Environmental Injustice, and Decolonial Repair: The Case of South Durban Basin. Public Humanities 1: 1–9. Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/pub.2025.10043

2025. Necessitating Environmental Education: Indigenous Knowledge and Decolonial Ethics in Rajam Krishnan’s When the Kurinji Blooms. Interdisciplinary Literary Studies 27(2): 164–191. Link: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/2/article/963712

2025. Dams, development and disposability: Eco-anxiety, precarity and submerging voices in Na. D’souza’s Dweepa. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 12(44): 1-9. Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-024-04294-6

2025. Decoloniality, solidarity, and indigenous ecology: Reading Nemonte Nenquimo’s We Will Not Be Saved as hope in the Anthropocene. Journal for Cultural Research 29(3): 398–414. [co-authored]. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14797585.2025.2506048

2025. Decolonial hope and planetary solidarity: Fostering sustainability through African life narratives. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 61(3): 313–330. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449855.2025.2454571

2025.   Nation, family and trauma: Techno-nationalism and conflicts of loyalty in the Indian Hindi-language espionage thriller Mission Majnu. National Identities 27(1-2): 175–194. [co-authored]. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14608944.2024.2439795

2024.  Plachimada Struggle and the Environmentalism of the Poor: (In)justice and Activism in Mayilamma: The Life of a Tribal Eco-Warrior. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 36(2): 124–137. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1013929X.2024.2410071

2024.  Knowledge Born in the Struggle”: Activism, Decolonial Ecology, and Sustainability in Wangari Maathai’s Unbowed: A Memoir. Scrutiny2 28(2): 158–179. [co-authored]. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/18125441.2024.2391414

2024. Towards a critical ecological ontology: literacy, sustainability, and fostering environmental education through the Indian green informational picturebook. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 15(6): 939-959. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21504857.2024.2371856

2024.  Injustice and subaltern environmentalism: tribal ecosystem and decolonial practices in Bhoopal’s Forest, Blood & Survival: Life and Times of Komuram Bheem. Journal for Cultural Research 28(4): 333-352. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14797585.2024.2358538

2024. Transformative Learning with Wangari Maathai: Fostering Environmental Education and Sustainability Through the Green Picturebook Seeds of Change: Planting a Path to Peace. Journal of Human Values ​​31(1): 97-117. Link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09716858241263129

2024.  Grievable/Disposable lives in the Anthropocene culture: Ecoprecarity, indigenousness and ecological wisdom in Kaala Paani. International Social Science Journal 74: 1633–1648. [co-authored]. Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/issj.12533 

2024.  Examining (in)justice, environmental activism and indigenous knowledge systems in the Indian film Kantara (Mystical Forest). Socio-Ecological Practice Research 6(2): 117-130. (Editor’s Choice) [co-authored]. Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42532-024-00180-2

2024. Living with extraction: Environmental injustice, slow observation and the decolonial turn in the Niger delta, Nigeria. International Social Science Journal 74: 787–808. Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/issj.12480

2023. Arguing for Environmental Education: Sustainability and Decoloniality in Bessie Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather. English Academy Review 41(1): 88-104. [co-authored]. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10131752.2023.2282340

2023. Tackling Environmental and Epistemic Injustice: Decolonial Approaches for Pluriversal Peacebuilding in South Africa. Peace Review 35(3): 496-510. [co-authored]. Link: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10402659.2023.2208519

2023.  Episteme and Ecology: Amitav Ghosh’s The Living Mountain and the Decolonial Turn.  South Asian Review 45(3): 315–35. [co-authored]. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02759527.2023.2206307

2023. Extraction and Environmental Injustices: (De)colonial Practices in Imbolo Mbue's How Beautiful We Were. ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics 22(2): 125–147. [co-authored]. Link: https://journals.jcu.edu.au/index.php/etropic/article/view/3970