Congratulations to Dr Chloe Nahum who has been awarded this year's Swapna Dev Memorial Book Prize. The prize is awarded for the best doctoral thesis in English literature at the University of Oxford. Dr Nahum's thesis title is '"To dream as I have never dreamed before": Dreams in First World War Literature and Culture'. The thesis draws upon diverse sources such as newspapers, visual material, medical records, letters and diaries to argue that an epidemic of dreaming, dream interpretation and dream depiction took place during the First World War. The thesis was undertaken as an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with the Imperial War Museum.
The prize was established in 2018 according to the wishes of Swapna Dev's husband, and supported by his generous gift. The prize honours the interest that Swapna Dev had in English literature. After receiving her B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from Delhi University, Swapna taught for many years on the B.A. Pass and Honours courses in English at the Jesus & Mary College, one of the leading colleges of Delhi University. After moving to the US, she became a visiting scholar in Folklore & Mythology at Harvard University from 1983 to 1985. At Harvard, Swapna worked on the metaphysical symbolism of Buddhist Stupas.
A lot of Swapna's writings, articles ranging from her childhood to diagnosis of her cancer, were discovered by her husband after her death. These were collected and published as a book titled, "Reminiscences of a Departed Soul," and is available from the publishing company, Blurb [US].
