Nirmal Selvamony

Nirmal Selvamony completed BA (1973–76) from Scott Christian College affiliated to Madurai Kamaraj University with First Rank in 1976. In 1978, completed MA from Madras Christian College, Chennai in English with A Grade. In 1978, he joined Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society, Bangalore as research fellow and submitted an essay titled Personhood in Art in 1982. In 1980 he commenced his Ph.D. in the University of Madras and submitted his dissertation titled "Literary Personhood in tolkappiyam" in 1988.

Nirmal Selvamony began in 1982, his academic career as an Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Madras Christian College affiliated to the University of Madras. In 1989 he became a senior-grade lecturer there. He was a visiting scholar in Davidson College, NC, USA during 1994-95. In 2006, he became Associate Profossor in the Madras Christian College. He was invited to start the first department(English Studies) of a new central university in Tamil Nadu(CUTN) in 2009. Subsequently in 2010, he voluntarily retired from his regular position at Madras Christian College, in order to develop the department at CUTN. He was Professor at the department of English at Cleveland State University, Ohio, USA, during the Spring semester of 2010. In 2011, he returned to the Department of English Studies in CUTN. Since then he has been the Head of the department of English Studies in that university. He was also visiting faculty in University of Hawaii, USA, Queen’s University, Belfast, N. Ireland. Elmhurst College, Chicago, USA, Free University and Dortmund University in W.Germany.

Selvamony has introduced the course, Ecocriticism for the first time in the Indian university system and founded a forum now known as tiNai (formerly, OSLE-India). It is he who coined the term "Neo-tiNai poetics," an ecocritical theory,[2] which is based on the tiNai theory of Classical Tamil Literature. He also started a journal ('Indian Journal of Ecocriticism') to promote this course. He was also the first to introduce the courses, Tamil Poetics, Tamil Musicology and Music and Literature in the University of Madras. He has revived the traditional Indian philosophical tradition called “kaaTci” (in a publication titled 'tamizk kaaTci neRiyiyal', 1996 [The Methodology of Tamil Philosophy] which precedes tolkaappiyam. He introduced tiNai (ecoregional) musicology that studies the music of the primordial biomic world regions (see: essays published in the reports of Tamil Isaic Cankam, Chennai, 1991, 1995, 1996). For more than tirty-five years he has researched 'tiNai' society and published several papers on various aspects of it attempting to reconstruct it as an alternative social order. He has played the guitar professionally in India and also in musical performances in India, USA, Germany and Hong Kong. Supplementing his doctoral research in dramatic theory, he has scripted, and directed plays and composed music for them.

In 2011, he was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award by North East Ohio Tamil Sangam, Ohio, US. He was awarded with For Best Monograph by International School of Dravidian Linguistics,Thiruvananthapuram for the book, 'Persona in Tolkappiyam'. He was selected as the Best Student, UGC Summer Institute in English Language Teaching, sponsored by British Council Division, Chennai and CIEFL, Hyderabad, at Department of English, University of Madras from 13 October to 8 November 1986.

Nirmal Selvamony’s other interests include music and drama. In 2015 he organised Theater Workshop with Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren, at Central University of Tamil Nadu, 18–23 March 2015. In 2002, he was the secretary of Tamizicaiyiyal Uyarnilai Aayvu Manram (Forum for Advanced Research in Tamil Musicology), Madurai.

He appeared in Vijaya TV programme Niiyaa Naanaa? (You or Me?) for a talk on “Do We Give Undue Importance to English?” on 30 Oct.2012. He was interviewed in Makkal Television on Tinai in “Cevvi in September, 2007 He appeared in NDTV in a programme “Red Earth and the Pouring Rain” (On Monsoons in India) in 2006.

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