Salman Akhtar entered academia through convergence. Currently a third-year doctoral student in the English department at York University, he trained and worked as, first, a teacher of English to ‘Other Language’ adult speakers, then as an upper secondary English Language and Literature instructor at an international school. In a parallel pursuit, he practised theatre with several troupes, acting in and directing productions like Galsworthy’s The First and the Last, Sartre’s No Exit, Reza’s ‘Art’, Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and McDonagh’s The Pillowman. Having reached a point where neither endeavour was enough on its own, he decided the combination of pedagogical rigour and performativity would be more challenging. His masters thesis at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur discussed postcolonial resistance offered by Martin McDonagh’s works (The Pillowman and A Very Very Very Dark Matter) through theoretical frameworks of Bill Ashcroft and Edouard Glissant. Going further, he hopes to investigate overlap points, fissures and aporias created as a post-postcolonial world interacts with theatrical performance in a peri/post-Covid19 world. His poetry has been published by Anak Sastra.

Email address: salmanak@yorku.ca