B.A. (University of Virginia);
M.A. Certificates (Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany);
M.A.; Ph.D. (Washington University)
Professor and Dean, Jindal School of Languages & Literature
| dpleighton@jgu.edu.in | |
| Connect with me | |
| Languages | German: reading, writing, speaking (high proficiency) French: reading knowledge Dutch, modern Greek, Italian, Russian: basic reading knowledge Hindi, Bengali: basic speaking |
| Key Expertise | Modern European intellectual history, history of political thought, 1600 - , modern Indian history, history of liberalism, history of socialism, global studies, Romanticism, translation theory, literary utopias |
B.A. (University of Virginia);
M.A. Certificates (Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany);
M.A.; Ph.D. (Washington University)
Denys P. Leighton is Professor and Dean in the Jindal School of Languages and Literature, O. P. Jindal Global University since 2021. He worked at the University of Delhi and at Ambedkar University Delhi for more than fifteen years before joining Jindal Global University and has been on the faculty of several U.S. colleges and universities since 1990. He has taught and researched in several areas of history, political theory, European studies, and global studies. He holds degrees from the University of Virginia (BA) and Washington University, St. Louis (MA, PhD), studied at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Germany), and was a Middle Common Room associate of Mansfield College, University of Oxford. He has been the recipient of several fellowships and research grants. His major monographic publications include The Greenian Moment: T. H. Green, Religion and Political Argument in Victorian Britain (2004) and Lives of Victorian Political Figures. Part IV: J. S. Mill, Walter Bagehot, William Morris and T. H. Green by their Contemporaries, Vol. 2: Green and Morris (2009; reprint 2021). He has served on editorial boards of journals of cultural studies, language and literature studies, and history, and he regularly evaluates book manuscripts for publishers. Much of his research has been at the intersection of literature and history—for example, the political writing of poet and designer William Morris (1834-1896). Other areas of research include liberalism in India c. 1860 – 1950; temperance (anti-alcohol) movements in the British empire c. 1880-1950; spatial patterns of Indian life during the late colonial period; and literary utopias of the Anglophone world. In 2024-2026 he is a member of the Fulbright Board for India (U.S.-India Educational Foundation).
Survey of American Literature (BA Hons. English, core)
How Does Prose Matter? (BAHE, core)
Global History of Liberalism (JSLL, elective)
Making History: Myths, Epics, Chronicles, and Histories (JSLL, elective)
Unstable Empire: British empire c. 1600 - 1960 (JSLL, elective)
William Morris and His/Our World (JSLL, elective)
Max Kade Foundation grant (for study in Federal Republic of Germany), July, 1985 – July, 1986.
Washington University, St. Louis, Graduate Student Fellowships, 1987 – 1988, 1990 – 1991.
Selected for a National Endowment of the Humanities Summer Faculty Seminar, Harry Ransom Research Center, University of Texas, Austin, May, 1996 (Director: William R. Louis) but did not avail of the fellowship.
Mellon Foundation Research Grant, Harry Ransom Research Center, University of Texas, Austin, May – July, 2008. Project title: ‘Alternative Futures of William Morris: Recollections c. 1870 – 1940’.
Visiting Fellow and Visiting Professor, History Department, University of Delhi, India (July, 2003 – May, 2007; July, 2008 – May, 2009). During this period I also taught BA- and MA-level courses in the Department of English and the Department of Germanic and Romance Studies.
Visiting Assistant Professor, History Department, Tulane University, Louisiana, USA (July, 2007 – May, 2008).
Instructor, Visiting Assistant Professor, State University of New York at Brockport, USA; Alfred University, USA; Onandaga Community College, USA; Hobart and William Smith Colleges, USA (May, 1993 – December, 2002; non-tenure and non-continuous appointments).
Teaching assistant and independent instructor, History Department and University College, Washington University, St. Louis, USA (January, 1988 – May, 1993, not continuously).
“Camus and Being an Intellectual in Twentieth-Century France,” presented at conference on The Intellectual Geography of Albert Camus, Alliance Française (New Delhi) with O. P. Jindal Global University, 3 May 2019.
“Why and How We Can Still Learn from Berlin’s ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’,” presented at A One-Day Seminar on Isaiah Berlin, India International Centre (New Delhi) with O. P. Jindal Global University, 1 March 2019.
“Re-evaluating ‘Enlightenment’ Through Isaiah Berlin and His Critics,” inaugural lecture of the Indian International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Department of History, University of Delhi, 9 November 2017.
“Serendipitous Interdisciplinarity,” presented at conference Crossing Borders: Exploring New Paradigms of Interdisciplinarity and Transnationalism, Department of English, University of Delhi, 23 August 2017.
“After Nation and Race: Late Victorian Fantasies of State and Anarchy in Morris’s News from Nowhere (1891) and Richard Jefferies’ After London; or Wild England (1885),” presented at seminar of the Department of History, University of Delhi, 31 October 2012.
“Radhakrishnan and the Construction of Philosophical Dialogue across Cultural Traditions,” in William Sweet (ed.), Migrating Texts and Traditions (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2012), pp. 267-83. ISBN 9780776607078.
“The World in the Year 1900” and “National Liberation Movements and ‘Development’” [textbook chapters: Hindi and English, for Class XII students], Twentieth-Century World (New Delhi: National Institute of Open Schooling, 2010).
“Poetics, Politics and the Cult of Character: Reading Milton in the Nineteenth Century,” presented at conference Inhabiting this Hour: John Milton, His Bequest, 1608 – 2010, Department of English, University of Delhi, 17 – 19 February 2010.
(Denys Leighton and Nancy Lopatin-Lummis), “A Public Life: Richard W. Davis, Historian, Mentor, Gentleman,” in Parliamentary History. Festschrift issue for R. W. Davis, vol. 27/ no. 1 (February, 2008), pp. 1-6. ISSN 1750-0206
“T. H. Green and the Dissidence of Dissent: On Religion and National Character in Nineteenth-Century England,” in Parliamentary History, vol. 27/ no. 1 (February, 2008), pp. 43-56. ISSN 1750-0206
“Temperance Movements” and “Welfare State: Overview”: articles in Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, ed.-in-chief, Bonnie G. Smith (New York: Oxford UP, 2008), vol. 4, pp. 208-211, 342-345. ISBN-13 9780195148909
“Orientalism and Modern Indian Philosophy: Explaining the Career of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975),” presented to conference History and Philosophy, Aligarh Historians’ Society and Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, 13 June 2006.
“Some Reflections on Authorial Authenticity and Cultural Interlocution,” paper presented to conference Rites of Passage: Exploring Changes in the Travel Motif, Department of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Delhi, 3 March 2006.
“Being an Indian Philosopher in the Twentieth Century: Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and World Philosophy,” paper presented to Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 2 February 2006.
The Greenian Moment: T. H. Green, Religion and Political Argument in Victorian Britain (Exeter, UK and Charlottesville, USA: Imprint Academic, 2004). Series Editor: Peter Nicholson. ISBN 0907845541
(Denys Leighton and Suresh Babu), “The Shompen of Great Nicobar Island (India): Between ‘Development’ and Disappearance”, Policy Matters. Special Issue: History, Culture and Conservation, vol. 13 (November, 2004), pp. 198-211.
“Communalism and Secularism: Some National Comparisons,” talk given at Developing Countries Research Center, University of Delhi, 30 March 2004.
“Secularization, Secularism and European Modernity,” paper presented to seminar Rethinking the Idea of Europe: Cultural Studies as European Studies, Center for German Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 23 February 2004.
“What’s Wrong with Religious Commitment?: Liberalism, Community and Social Mobilization,” paper presented in seminar series of the Department of Political Science, University of Delhi, 3 November 2003.
“Anti-Colonialism in British Liberal and Socialist Thought, ca. 1850-1920,” paper presented to conference Ideological Aspects of Anti-Colonial Thought and Politics 1880s to 1950s, University of Delhi, 21-22 August 2003.
“Individual Liberty, Social Order, and Social Evolution in Late Nineteenth Century Political Thought,” presentation at colloquium of the Liberty Fund, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, 5 – 8 June 2003.
"Municipal Progress, Democracy and Radical Identity in Birmingham, 1838-1886," Midland History, vol. 25 (2000), pp. 115-42. ISSN 0047-729X
“Affirmation and Opposition in Popular Culture” [Guest editor introduction], Mid-Atlantic Almanack. Journal of the Popular/American Culture Association, vol. 9 (2000), pp. 1-5. ISSN 1063-1763
| dpleighton@jgu.edu.in | |
| Connect with me | |
| Languages | German: reading, writing, speaking (high proficiency) French: reading knowledge Dutch, modern Greek, Italian, Russian: basic reading knowledge Hindi, Bengali: basic speaking |
| Key Expertise | Modern European intellectual history, history of political thought, 1600 - , modern Indian history, history of liberalism, history of socialism, global studies, Romanticism, translation theory, literary utopias |