Dr. Chinmay Murali is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Sanatana Dharma College, Alappuzha. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Tiruchirappalli. He was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Center for Health Humanities, MCPHS University, Boston, USA. His research interests include comics studies, health humanities, literature and medicine, and graphic medicine. His recently published Routledge monograph Infertility Comics and Graphic Medicine examines the representation of women’s involuntary childlessness in graphic medicine. His research articles have appeared in prestigious international journals such as Perspectives in Biology and Medicine (Johns Hopkins UP), Journal of Medical Humanities (Springer), Women’s Studies (Routledge), Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (Routledge), among others.
First Rank
Second Rank
Dissertation: “Travails of (M)otherhood: Women’s Infertility Memoirs and Graphic Medicine.”
Dissertation: “Reimagining the Public Sphere: New Media and the Virtual Public Sphere.”
A Plus Grade
- Health Humanities
- Graphic Medicine
- Literature and Medicine
- Comics Studies
- Visiting Scholar Fellowship, Center for Health Humanities, MCPHS University, Boston,Massachusetts, USA (2023)
- Budding Researcher Award, NIT Tiruchirappalli, India (2021)
- Budding Researcher Award, NIT Tiruchirappalli, India (2020)
- Senior Research Fellowship, NIT Tiruchirappalli, India (2019-2022)
- Junior Research Fellowship, NIT Tiruchirappalli, India (2017-19)
- K.P.K Menon Prize for the Best Outgoing Student, Institute of English, University of Kerala, India (2015)
- Post Graduate Merit Scholarship for University Rank Holders, UGC (2013-15)
- Higher Education Scholarship, Kerala State Higher Education Council, (2010- 2013)
3 Years
2021
- Literary Theory
- Shakespeare Studies
- Film Studies
- Gender Studies
1. “Visualising Health: The Aesthetics and Politics of Graphic Medicine.” Sree Vidhyadhiraja NSS College, Vazhoor, Kerala, India. Feb. 15, 2024. [Forthcoming]
2. “Planetary Health and the Emergence of the Medical-Environmental Humanities.” Govt. College Thrippunithura, Kerala, India. Dec. 14, 2023.
3. “Author Talk on Infertility Comics and Graphic Medicine.” Harvard Medical School Library, Boston, MA, USA. April 18, 2023.
4. “Gynographics and the Visual Rhetoric of Comics.” MCPHS University, Boston, MA, USA. April 11, 2023.
5. “Health Humanities: Discipline and Discourse.” Department of English, Maharajas College, Kerala, India. Feb. 28, 2023.
6. “Covid-19: The U.S. Experience.” VESTIGO-20 International Webinar Series on Post-Covid World. Mary Matha Arts and Science College, Kerala, India. May 27, 2020.
Journals
1. “I set out to make a comic that I would want to read”: a conversation on queer motherhood and LGBTQ+ comics with A.K. Summers. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. (2023) [Routledge] (with Parvathy MS) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21504857.2023.2233582
2. “‘As the reader witnesses the character’s learning, they are learning as well’: talking comics, graphic medicine, and menopause with M.K. Czerwiec.” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. (2021) [Routledge] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21504857.2021.2017995
3. “It just went wrong, as bodies are prone to do”: Graphic Medicine and the Trauma of Miscarriage.” Journal of Medical Humanities. [Springer] (2020) (with Sathyaraj Venkatesan) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10912-020-09666-y
4. “The Infertile Body in the Clinic: Medicalization, Gaze, and Loss of Agency in Women’s Infertility Comics.” Women’s Studies. [Routledge] (2020) (with Sathyaraj Venkatesan)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00497878.2020.1785879?journalCod e=gwst20
5. “Drawing infertility: an interview with Paula Knight, Jenell Johnson, Emily Steinberg, and Phoebe Potts.” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. [Routledge] [2019]. (with Sathyaraj Venkatesan) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21504857.2020.1764074
6. “Graphic Medicine and the Critique of Contemporary U.S. Healthcare.” Journal of Medical Humanities [Springer] (2019) (with Sathyaraj Venkatesan) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10912-019-09571-z
7. “Is Educational Health Comics Graphic Medicine?” GNOSIS 3 (2019): 166-179 (with Sweetha Saji) http://thegnosisjournal.com/online/imagebag/image54.pdf
8. ““Childless? Childfree? Neither, Just ME”: Pronatalism and (M)otherhood in Paula Knight’s The Facts of Life.” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. [Routledge] [2019]. (with Sathyaraj Venkatesan) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21504857.2019.1617179
9. “Infertility Comics and Graphic Medicine.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 61.4 (2018): 609-621. [Johns Hopkins University Press] (with Sathyaraj Venkatesan). https://muse.jhu.edu/article/713167#info_wrap
10. “I don’t even feel human anymore”: Monstrosity and Othering in Ken Dahl’s Monsters.” 10.3 (2018). Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities. (with Sathyaraj Venkatesan). http://www.rupkatha.com/V10/n3/v10n307.pdf
11. “New Media and the 2016 US Presidential Election: A Case Study.” Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 8, No.2. 2017. ISSN 0975 – 6795 (print) ISSN 2321– 5828 (online). https://www.indianjournals.com/ijor.aspx?target=ijor:rjhss&volume=8&issue=2&arti cle=021
12. “Towards a New Linguistic Paradigm: A Study of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small
Things.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English. Vol. 8, No. 3, 2014. (ISSN 0976-8165) (with Amala S Charulatha)
https://www.the-criterion.com/V8/n3/IN10.pdf
13. “Kiss of Love and the Politics of the Multitude.” TJES 2016 (ISSN 0975-6302)
14. “Modernity and the Discourses of Sexual Morality in Kerala.” International Research Journal, University Central Library, SSUS. Volume 3 Issue 01 June 2016.
15. “Googling the Google: Virtuality, Power and Surveillance in Dave Eggers’ The Circle.” Critical Encounter Volume 5 Issue 1 July 2016 (ISSN 2454 2083)
16. “Censoring the Minor: Ban on Papilio Buddha and the Politics of Oppression.” Littcrit Volume 42 Issue 81 June 2016 (99-107) (ISSN 0976-8048)
17. “Fragmented Selves and Transnational Spaces: A Study of Pico Iyer’s The Man within My Head.” The Investigator Volume 2 Issue 1 March 2016 (112-118) (ISSN 2454-3314)
18. “Disrupting “the Moral”: Kiss of Love and the Politics of Sexual Morality in Kerala.” Singularities Volume 3 Issue 1 January 2016 (92-100) (ISSN 2348-3369)
Conference Presentations
1. ““I’ll not falter, I’ll never be broke”: Ecological Consciousness in Paula Knight’s The Facts of Life.” National Seminar on Green Literature. 31st Jan. 2020. Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nādu.
2. “Picturing the Wounded Healer: A Study of Ian Williams’ The Bad Doctor.” Contemporaneity of Language and Literature in the Robotized Millennium on 4th and 5th October 2019. SRMIST, Chennai, India.
3. “Travails of (M)otherhood: Comics, Graphic Medicine and Infertility.” National Level Young Research Workshop on New Directions in New Humanities Research. 26-27 July 2018. EFL University, Hyderabad, India.
4. “Towards a Visual Paradigm of Illness: Intersections of Graphic Medicine and Narrative Medicine.” International Seminar on “The Enigma of Story: Lived Experience, Time and Narrative.” 14-16 March 2018. BPC for General Semantics and other Human Sciences, Baroda, India.
5. “Doctor as the Failed Hero: Deconstructing the Doctor Figure in Ian Williams’ The Bad Doctor.” International Conference on “In Search of the Hero(es) within the Genre and Beyond” on 23-24 Feb 2018, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India.
6. “Picturing Otherness: Urban Ethos and Lesbian Angst in Amruta Patil’s Kari.” Three- day International Conference on Commonwealth Literature, 8-10 February 2018, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India.
7. “When Disability Studies Meets Graphic Medicine: Reading AI Davison’s The Spiral Cage.” International Conference on “Achievements of and/or Innovations for the Specially Abled.” 7th Jan. 2018. Centre for Differently Abled Persons, Bharathidasan University, Trichy and Tamil Nadu Udavikkaram Association for the Welfare of Differently Abled, Chennai India.
8. “I don’t even feel human anymore”: Monstrosity and Othering in Ken Dahl’s Monsters.” International Conference on Language, Literature and Culture, Dec. 15- 17, 2017. Institute of Advanced Studies in English, Pune, India.
9. “Graphic Medicine.” GIAN course on Comics and Graphic Novels held at Guru Ghasidas University, Chhattisgarh, India. November 2017. [Resource person: Dr William Kuskin, Professor of English, University of Colorado Boulder, USA]
10. UGC- Sponsored National Workshop and Seminar on Kerala’s Cultural History Maurya Rajadhani, Thiruvananthapuram. Organised by Institute of English, University of Kerala. Title of paper: Modernity and the Discourses of Sexual Morality in Kerala. 14th-19th March 2016.
11. UGC-Sponsored National Seminar on Paradigm Shifts in Humanities: From Literature to Cultural Studies. University of Kerala. Organised by the P.G Dept. Of English, S.N College, Chempazanthy & Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Kerala. Title of Paper: Googling the Google: Virtuality, Power and Surveillance in Dave Egger’s The Circle. 30th -31 Oct. 2015.
12. National Bi-lingual Seminar on Postmodern Theories. Asan Memorial, Kayikkara. Organised by the State Institute of Languages and Asan Memorial Association. Title of Paper: The “Other” in Domestic Colonialism. 4th May. 2015.
13. National Seminar on Understanding Aboriginal Australia. University of Kerala. Organised by the Centre for Australian Studies, University of Kerala. Title of Paper: Aboriginal Voices in Australian Music. 8th & 9th Jan. 2015.
14. National Seminar on Life Writing: Perspectives and Challenges. Govt. Women’s College, Kannur. Organised by the P.G Dept. Of English and Research Centre, Govt. Women’s College, Kannur. Title of Paper: An Author in Search of his Patriarch: A Study of Pico Iyer’s The Man within My Head. 8th -9th Oct. 2013.
15. UGC Sponsored National Seminar on Strategies of Resistance in Indian Aesthetics. University College, Thiruvananthapuram. Organised by the Dept. Of Malayalam,University College, Thiruvananthapuram. Title of Paper: Interface between Reader- response and Rasadwani. 12th -13th Feb. 2013.
16. UGC Sponsored National Seminar on Event, Memory and Literature: Trauma Narratives of the Indian Subcontinent. St. Thomas College, Kozhencherry. Organised by the P.G Dept. Of English, St. Thomas College, Kozhencherry. Title of Paper: Tales of Trauma from Real to Reel: A Study of Jayan Cherian’s Papilio Buddha. 5th -6th Sept. 2013.
17. National Interdisciplinary Conference on Minor Subjectivities: Paradigms of Representation and Discourse. Kannur University Campus, Thalassery. Organised by the Dept. of Studies in English, Kannur University. Title of Paper: Censoring the Minor: Ban on Papilio Buddha and the Politics of Oppression. 27th -28th Feb. 2013.
18. National Seminar on Perspectives on Post Colonial Literatures. Govt. College, Mananthavady. Organised by the Dept. of English, Govt. College, Mananthavady. Title of Paper: Towards a New Linguistic Paradigm: A Study of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. 8th -9th Feb. 2012.
Books / Chapters
Book
1. Infertility Comics and Graphic Medicine
[Routledge/Taylor & Francis] [New York/London] [2022] (with Sathyaraj Venkatesan)
Book Chapters
1. “Gynographics.” Keywords and Key images in Graphic Medicine edited by Lisa
Diedrich and Briana Martino [Pennsylvania State University Press]
[Forthcoming/2024]
2. “Conceiving the Inconceivable: Graphic Medicine, Queer Motherhood, and A.K.
Summer’s Pregnant Butch.” LGBTQ Comics Reader edited by Alison Halsall,
Jonathan Warren [University Press of Mississippi] [2022] (with Sathyaraj Venkatesan)
https://www.academia.edu/88209808/_Graphic_Medicine_The_LGBTQ_Comics_Studies_Reader
3. “Graphic Medicine, Ecological Consciousness, and Paula Knight’s The Facts of Life.”
Bloomsbury Handbook of Medical-Environmental Humanities. [2022] (with SathyarajVenkatesan)
4. “Tales of Trauma from Real to Reel: A Study of Jayan Cherian’s Papilio Buddha.” Event, Memory and Literature: Trauma Narratives of the Indian Subcontinent Eds. Febu George and Annie George. Pathanamthitta: Prasakthi, 2015. (48-57) (ISBN - 978-81923313-8-6)