Dr. Sreelakshmy M

Sreelakshmy M has a doctorate in English Literature from the University of Hyderabad where she worked on the speculative fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, locating Butler’s oeuvre within the interrelated frameworks of m/othering, reproduction, and multispecies communities. 

Before joining UPES, she worked as visiting faculty in the National Institute of Technology, Warangal (NITW). She has also done the occasional copyediting and proofreading for IWEOnline, world’s first peer-reviewed, Open Educational Resource for Indian Writing in English, as well as for the UNESCO Chair in Vulnerability Studies. 

Butler studies I Afrofuturism I Posthumanism I Speculative Fiction & Fantasy 

Sreelakshmy thinks that teaching and learning English Literature can be an enriching experience as it contributes to enhancing critical thinking skills. She believes in engaging students with canonical and non-canonical texts, helping them close(ly) read the texts while locating them in specific socio-cultural backgrounds. Reading English Literature is thus not an isolated experience as it is accompanied by thinking about the texts and contexts. 

At the School of Liberal Studies, Sreelakshmy teaches courses on “Ecofeminism and Ecological Futures,” “Gender, Literature and Culture,” and the “Evolution of Poetry.” She has previously taught English for Technical Communication offered by the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at NITW. She has also contributed two audio-visual lessons to Professor Pramod K. Nayar’s NPTEL/SWAYAM course on Posthumanism (2024). 

Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and Senior Research Fellowship (SRF), awarded by the University Grants Commission, during the tenure of her PhD, 2018-2023. 

Sreelakshmy has published in the Journal of Posthuman Studies, the SFRA Review, and the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies (JLCDS). She has an upcoming book-chapter in the Lexington Books’ edited collection on Supernatural Mothers and Wombs of Discontent. Her recent publication titled “Rewriting the Sexual Contract in Octavia E. Butler’s ‘Bloodchild’” can be found in ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews (2025). 

sreelakshmy.m@ddn.upes.ac.in