Sami Ahmad Khan

Academic interests

Science Fiction, Monster Narratives, War Narratives, Popular Fiction

About Sami Ahmad Khan

Sami Ahmad Khan is a writer, academic, and documentary producer who engages with Indian Science Fiction. He is the recipient of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellowship (University of Oslo, Norway), a Fulbright FLTA grant (University of Iowa, USA), and a UGC-MANF Senior Research Fellowship (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India). Sami holds a PhD in Science Fiction from JNU and has taught at the Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi), Jindal Global University, and GGS Indraprastha University. His creative and critical writings have appeared in leading academic journals ( Science Fiction Studies, The Journal of Popular Culture, Fafnir), university presses (MIT Press, University of Wales Press), and trade imprints (Gollancz, Hachette, Bloomsbury, Routledge, Rupa, Juggernaut, Niyogi). His overview of Indian SF has been translated into Czech and his short story has been translated into Marathi. His fiction has been the subject of formal academic research and a part of university syllabi in India and the US. His future-war thriller  Red Jihad  has won two awards [NBT India's National Debut Youth Fiction Award (co-winner) and Muse India Young Writer Award (runners-up)]. His second novel –  Aliens in Delhi  – garnered rave reviews and was shortlisted for the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar (Indian National Academy of Letters' Young Writer Award). His latest bookStar Warriors of the Modern Raj: Materiality, Mythology and Technology of Indian Science Fiction  was longlisted for the BSFA Award in the non-fiction category. 

About the Project: neoMONSTERS  

Sami is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellow at IKOS, University of Oslo, Norway, where he runs the EU-funded project “The neoMONSTERS Within: The Others in India's Science Fiction”. The postdoctoral project delves into how India's popular narratives negotiate epistemes of monstrosity and manifest contesting ideologies. It interrogates the metaphorical reimaginings of the 'other' and studies the portrayal(s) of alterity vis-a-vis specific material realities. The project maps alternate presents and fictional futures in contemporary India's popular imagination and hunts for the aforementioned neoMONSTERS: Mutagenic Ontological Narratives in Space-Time Echoing Realistic Situations.

Fellowships

Sami has been the recipient of a  Fulbright grant (USA), a  UGC-MANF Senior Research Fellowship (India), a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellowship (Norway),  and a  University Grants Commission SAP Fellowship (India). 

Please find more about my research here:  Publications on ResearchGate

Publications

Books

1. Star Warriors of the Modern Raj: Materiality, Mythology and Technology of Indian Science Fiction. University of Wales Press (2021)
2. Aliens in Delhi. Juggernaut/Niyogi Books (2017)
3. Red Jihad: Battle for South Asia. Rupa & Co. (2012)

Research Papers and Book Chapters

1. “AI, Wars, and Climate Change: India's Future(s) in Three Hindi “Large Short” Films”. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. 34(1), 2023. 
2. "Genre-Zombies and Zombie-Genre: Science Fiction, India and the Undead". Foundation: International Review of Science Fiction. 145/54(2), 2023.
3. “Zombies and India: The neoMONSTERS Epidemiology”. The Journal of Popular Culture. 56(2), 2023.
4. “Altars of Alterity: The Curious Case of Aliens in India's Science Fiction.” Altered Space: Essays on the Global Transformation of Science Fiction. Edited by Gary Westphal. McFarland (forthcoming)
5. “ Rendezvous with Rama (Rajya): The Golden Past in India's (Anglophonic) Science Fiction”. The Routledge Handbook of Alternative Futurisms. Edited by Dillon, Lavender, Chattopadhyay and Taylor. Routledge (2023).
6. “Control+Alt+Delete Humanity: Shovon Chowdhury's The Competent Authority .” Uneven Futures: Strategies for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction. Edited by Yoshinaga, Guynes and Canavan. MIT Press (2022)
7. "The Day After Tomorrow in Bengaluru: Environment, Global Climate Change and Dystopia(s)". Science Fiction in India: Parallel Worlds and Postcolonial Paradigms . Edited by Khilnani and Bhattacharjee. Bloomsbury (2022)
8. “The Recipe for Good Indian Science Fiction: Technology, Politics and Religion.” Worlds of Difference: Arab and Muslim Science Fiction. Edited by Elzembely and Aysha. McFarland (2022)
9. “Once Upon a Time in Bollywood Science Fiction: 'transMITting' across Gods, Aliens and Time”. Insight Journal. 6(1) 18-28 (2021)
10. “The neoMONSTERS Thesis: Dystopias, Ideologies and Monsters in Ghoul and Betaal ”. DUJES. 29(1) 39-404 (2021)
11. “Winter is Coming: Climatic Disruptions in 'The Ice Age Cometh'”. Imagining Worlds, Mapping Possibilities: Select Science Fiction Stories. Edited by Dogra and Khilnani. Worldview (2021)
12. “The Alien Invasion of Bollywood: Extraterrestrials in Indian Cinema.” Matt Braun. Edited by Braun, Chattopadhyay and Citron. Snoeck (2020)
13. “Dom(e)inating India's Tomorrow(s)? Global Climate Change in Select Anglophonic Narratives”. Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research. 6(2). 25-37 (2019)
14. “Worlds Apart: Myth, Science and Fiction in Sukanya Datta's Short Stories”. Indraprasth: An International Journal of Culture and Communication Studies. 8(1). 209-219 (2019)
15. “The Annihilation of Cloning: Caste and Cloning in Generation 14 ”. Muse India , issue 79 (May-June 2018)
16. “The Others in India's Other Futures”. Science Fiction Studies. 43(3), Indian SF. 479-495 (2016) 
17. “Goddess Sita Mutates Indian Mythology into SF: How Three (SF) Stories from Breaking the Bow Reinterpret the Ramayana ”. Fafnir - Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research. 3(2), 17-24 (2016)
18. "Gods of War Toke While Riding a Vimana: Hindu Gods in Three Indian Science Fiction Novels." (University of Maryland hosted) Museum of Science Fiction's Journal of Science Fiction. 1(1), 17-31 (2016)
19. “A Maoist Caliphate near India's Borders? Science, Fiction and Geopolitics in Baramulla Bombs ”. Mithila Review (2016)
20. "Sharing Air with Gandhi Toxin during Exile in 2099 AD: Manjula Padmanabhan's Short-Stories". Studies in South Asian Film and Media. 6(2), 91-104 (2015)
21. "Red Alert: Surveying Indian Science Fiction". Muse India, issue 61 (May-June 2015)
22. "Indicting Government Control, Military Industrial Complex, and Rogue AI: A Political Reading of 3 (YA) SF Stories". Rupkatha Journal for Inter-Disciplinary Study in Humanities.  7(3), 214-222 (2015)
23. “Escape the Beast with Nine Billion Feet in Zombiestan: How Three Indian SF Novels Interrogate Patriarchy, Capitalism, and Terrorism.” Muse India, issue 61 (May-June 2015)
24. “Bollywood's Encounters with the Third Kind: A Critical Catalog of Hindi SF Films.” Bollywood and Its Other(s): Towards New Configurations. Edited by Kishore, Sarwal and Patra. Palgrave Macmillan. Pp 186-201 (2014)

Short Fiction (latest)

1. “Biryani Bagh” in The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction Vol. II (2021)
2. “15004” in The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction Vol. I (2019)

Workshops conducted (Sep. 2021-present)

1. “India's Others and SF Monsters” with 10 leading SF writers of India at “India 2100”, New Delhi (March 02, 2023)
2. Organized, moderated, and co-conducted the “Monsters sans Frontières panel-cum-workshop” at SFRA, Oslo (June 27, 2022)
3. Resource Person on Science Fiction: Make a Myth, India (March 01, 2022)
4. Resource Person, CoFutures:  UNHCR (November 2022)
5. Resource Person on Writing Science Fiction:  IISER, India (October 2021). 

Talks and keynotes (Sep. 2021-present)

1. “Yoga Firing Nuclear Gandhis: Indian Science Fiction and Videogames” at Digital Game Research Association, India (November 26, 2022) [Keynote]

2. “Little Green Men and SF” at the University of Oslo, SF Library, Oslo (November 23, 2022)

3. “Understanding Indian Science Fiction” at Kurukshetra University, India (October 11, 2022) [Keynote]

4. Co-curated the “Futurings Art” Exhibition, SFRA, University of Oslo (June 27-Jul 1, 2022)

Conference papers (Sep. 2021-present)  

1. "Event, Content, and Intent: Extraterrestrials in Contemporary Indian SF". 2022 Virtual International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts (October 7–9, 2022) 
2. "The Zombie Mob: India and the Undead". Monsters Conference 2022 (Sep 6-9, 2022). The University of Reading and the University of Western Australia (online).
3. "Star Warriors of the Modern Raj: Indian Science Fiction". SFRA “Futures from the Margins” Conference, Oslo (Jul 1, 2022)

Panels (Sep. 2021-present)  

1.  Panellist, “Literature, Marginality and Resilience” at the International Conference on Literature, Marginality and Resilience, Deenbandhu Chotu Ram University of Science and Technology, Haryana, India (October 15, 2022)

2. ​​​Panellist, “Monsters and the Art of Story Telling”, The Monsters of the Anthropocene Halloween symposium ‘Unruly Origins, Strange Futures’, Oslo (29 Oct 2021)

3. Panellist, Global Climate Fiction, LEMiADEN Festival, Oslo, Norway (September 25, 2021).

Podcasts 

Sami hosts a series of podcasts exploring the divergent portrayals of monsters in contemporary India’s Science Fiction.

neoMONSTERS Podcast #1: Zombies in Delhi? A Conversation with Mainak Dhar (2022)

neoMONSTERS Podcast #2: Zombie/Toke? A Talk with Jugal Mody (2022)

neoMONSTERS Podcast #3: Love/Monsters. A Conversation with Rashmi Ruth Devaasan (2022)

neoMONSTERS Podcast #4: Monsters in Bangla Science Fiction. A Talk with Dip Ghosh (2022)

Find them here: The neoMONSTERS Podcast series

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/the-neomonsters-podcast/id1611223563

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0vuTJC7P8Q1IDSyAr0ufWv

For more information, please visit the neoMONSTERS website