A Memorable PhD Viva Voce
Today
Department of English | MCC
10th October 2025
Dr. Pheba Paul
Well, this post is unique because it carries the jottings of a professor who is so proud of his student – Ms. Pheba Paul!
I’ve known Ms. Pheba Paul ever since her first UG days in MCC, in the year 2012. She went on to do her Masters in the year 2015. Then she also registered for her PhD with Dr. Ann Thomas, Research Department of English, MCC as a JRF Scholar, the very next year.
So it’s been an eventful 13 years of study in MCC for Pheba.
All her Professors today testified to how she has evolved so gracefully over the years in her academic journey with us in MCC.
One special highlight about Ms. Pheba Paul is that, she has always been the class topper ever since her first UG days. She is a passionate and voracious reader, (a skill that she has so beautifully passed on to her daughter as well) and to my knowledge, she has never missed a single class with her Professors, all those five years.
Added, whenever she’s in a class, she ensures that she takes down copious notes from all the lectures that she listens to. Moreover, she is one of the few students who frequents the library whenever she gets any spare time on her. No wonder then, that she was able to clear her NET with the prestigious JRF!
All the more reason for our happiness today, when we saw her successfully defend her PhD thesis today in front of a wonderful gathering of Professors, Deans, Research Scholars and her family members.
Almost all of us – her professors turned up for her Viva Voce exam today, as she had won our hearts alike with her commitment and passion to her subject, all through her period of study.
Today being the acme or the pinnacle of her academic life in MCC – when she got the honorific Dr. Pheba Paul – an honorific that is going to be part of her academic identity for the rest of her life.
The Topic of her thesis was – ‘Creating’ Trauma and Journeying to Resilience: A Comparative Study of the Select Novels of Benyamin and Dinaw Mengestu.
She had so beautifully structured her thesis as follows –
Creating Hope for the Traumatised Migrant: The Road to Resilience as depicted in Benyamin’s Novels
Creating Hybrid Identities
in the Traumatised Migrant: The Duality of Being and Belonging in Dinaw
Mengestu’s Novels.
Trauma as the beginning of
the Journey: Modes of Resilience in the Select Novels of Benyamin and Dinaw
Mengestu.
Highlighting the fact that, migration has been the very essence of human civilization, and stressing on the relevance of studying works based on migrants, by enumerating the issues of migrant population worldwide, she then stressed on the importance of analysing migrant fiction, and having a knowledge of issues faced by migrants worldwide and assist in finding solutions.
The texts chosen for study: Malayalam writer Benyamin’s novels Goat Days, Jasmine Days; Ethiopian-American writer Dinaw Mengestu’s The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears, How to Read the Air, and All our Names.
She did an amazing comparative study of the novels – on how they deal with the concept of migration – using the framework of cultural trauma theory – concepts by Jeffrey Alexander, Neil Smelser, Ron Eyerman, etc.
Foregrounding next, the importance of Comparative Literature, as heralding a shift from the Eurocentric view to accepting different cultures and language traditions, she quoted from E. V. Ramakrishnan’s ‘emphasis on difference’, and how the ‘literary’ is constituted variously in each tradition.
She also mentioned a quote from Tutun Mukherjee on the concept of ‘ex-centricity’ – attempting representations from different perspectives, from within specific contextual knowledge.
Comparative literature hence, helps in exploring a variety of discourses, ‘the discrete borders of nationality, culture, language, and such other categories – become porous or there be osmosis between the elements that appear separate to create a new compound, the synergy of which will surpass the sense of being merely the sum of all parts’, and the effort to find ‘affiliations’ between such texts, she said.
Elucidating next, on the reasons for the choice of the writers and their texts, she said that, it was ‘difference’ and ‘ex-centricity’ that were the prime reasons for choosing the texts – the similarity and differences between the writers, which on comparative study reveal ‘affiliations’ based on migration and cultural trauma.
Their different literary and cultural origins united under the theme of ‘migration’, and there is a possibility of exploring how migrant lives all over the world are interconnected.
She then proceeded to discuss the concepts of ‘Trauma and Migration’ as follows –
Discussions on migration interspersed with discussions on trauma
Both deal with loss of
meaning and rewiring of identity
Interface mediated by memory
Lost identity cannot be
reclaimed – only reconstructed
Study – migrant’s trauma
process – journey to reconciliation
The Hypothesis
Migrant trauma is ‘created’ and can be resolved gradually through the trauma process.
The Titular term, ‘Creating’ is from Jeffrey Alexander’s Theory of Trauma. Trauma is a creation, like a story.
After outlining the metholodogy, she then proceeded to give the theoretical framework-
Contemporary Trauma Theory
Jeffrey Alexander’s theory
of Social Trauma
Areas from Postcolonialism,
Postmodernism, Logotherapy and Postmemory
Dr. Franklin Daniel, our vibrant Head of the Department, gave a very warm welcome address, following which, Dr. Ann Thomas, her Research Supervisor, introduced and welcomed the External Examiner Dr. Armstrong, Head, Dept of English, and Vice-Chancellor In-charge, University of Madras.
Dr. Armstrong then welcomed Ms. Pheba to give her defence.
It was a rewarding PhD Viva voce of sorts!
A day that saw our vibrant student Ms. Pheba Paul evolve so gracefully into her new avatar as Dr. Pheba Paul.
Congratulations Dr. Pheba! We are sooo proud of you.
So happy and proud to note that, her classmate Ms. Aparna Radhakrishnan, defended her PhD Thesis just two months ago, on 5th August 2025 at 10 am in the School of Letters, MG University, Kottayam. We are so proud of you Dr. Aparna Radhakrishnan – one of our bestest students ever!
Coincidentally, even for her Viva Voce, Dr. Armstrong was the External Examiner.
Let your light continue to shine, dispelling the darkness of ignorance, in whatever you do, in your lovely academic sojourn!
You may want to read Ms. Pheba’s lovely assignment on the topic, ‘Adventures as a Bibliophile’ on our past blogpost HERE, in 2017.
You may also want to look up yet another inspirational Viva Voce that happened in our Department, on 11th December 2008, on our past blogpost HERE.
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