Srinivas Aravamudan (1962 – April 13, 2016)^[1] was an Indian-born American academic. He was a professor of English, Literature, and Romance Studies atDuke University, where he also served as dean of thehumanities. He was widely recognized for his work on eighteenth-century British and French literature andpostcolonial literature and theory. His publications included books and articles on novels,slavery,abolition,secularism,cosmopolitanism,globalization,climate change, and theanthropocene.

Aravamudan was born in 1962 in Madras and attendedLoyola College,University of Madras. He held master's degrees fromPurdue University andCornell University and earned his PhD at Cornell.^[2] He taught at theUniversity of Utah and theUniversity of Washington before joining Duke's faculty in 2000.^[3] He was awarded an honorary degree byMiddlebury College in April 2016.^[4]

In 2000, Aravamudan received theModern Language Association's prestigious prize for an outstanding first book for the publication ofTropicopolitans: Colonialism and Agency, 1688–1804 (Duke University Press, 1999).^[5] The work was particularly acclaimed for its inventive readings of eighteenth-century works of literature in light of postcolonial theories and concerns.^[6] Aravamudan's second book,Guru English: South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan Language (Princeton University Press, 2005; Penguin India, 2007), was similarly recognized for its expansive treatment of topics ranging fromRomanticorientalism toDeepak Chopra,^[7] as well as for its tracing of the complex circuits via which knowledge about South Asian religion was produced.^[8] In his third book,Enlightenment Orientalism: Resisting the Rise of the Novel (Chicago University Press, 2012), Aravamudan considered manifestations of orientalism during the eighteenth century. Aravamudan further challenged literary critics to move beyond the Anglocentrism of typical histories of the novel by uncovering a significant body of British and French orientalist texts and their borrowings from Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Pali, and Sanskrit sources.^[9] ForEnlightenment Orientalism, Aravamudan received aCHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award,^[10] the Barbara Perkins and George Perkins Prize for the most significant contribution to the study of narrative from the International Society for the Study of Narrative,^[11] and the Oscar Kenshur Prize for the best book in eighteenth-century studies from Indiana University's Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies.^[12]

In addition to publishing the above books, Aravamudan edited a volume for thePickering & Chatto series onSlavery, Abolition, and Emancipation: Writings in the British Romantic Period (1999).^[13] He also published an edition ofWilliam Earle'sObi; or, The History of Three-Fingered Jack (Broadview, 2005), a novel from 1800 about the legend ofJack Mansong, an escaped slave in late eighteenth-century Jamaica.^[14]

Aravamudan made significant contributions to the study of literature and the humanities at an institutional level as well. During his tenure at Duke, Aravamudan served as director of theFranklin Humanities Institute and dean of the humanities and oversaw such major projects as the Humanities Writ Large initiative.^[15] Aravamudan also served as president of the internationalConsortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (2007–2012, 2014–2016) and president of theAmerican Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2015–2016).^[16]

He died on April 13, 2016.^[17]

• Enlightenment Orientalism: Resisting the Rise of the Novel (University of Chicago Press: 2012)
• Guru English: South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan Language (Princeton UP: 2006)
• Tropicopolitans: Colonialism and Agency, 1688–1804 (Duke UP: 1999)
• Obi, or the History of Three-Fingered Jack (Broadview: 2005) ed. Aravamudan
• Special issue ofPMLA on "War," ed. Aravamudan
• "The Character of the University,"Boundary 2 37.1 (Winter 2010) 23–55
• "What Kind of a Story Is This?,"PMLAApproaches to Teaching Oroonoko (2010)
• "The Adventure Chronotope and the Oriental Xenotrope: Galland, Sheridan, and Joyce Domesticate The Arabian Nights," inThe Arabian Nights After Three Hundred Years, ed.Felicity Nussbaum andSaree Makdisi (2008)
• "Defoe, Commerce, Adventure, and Empire," inCambridge Companion to Daniel Defoe, ed. John Richetti (2008)
• "The Teleopoiesis of Singularity,"PMLA 123.1 (January 2008)
• (withRanjana Khanna andFredric Jameson) "Final Interview," inJameson on Jameson, ed.Ian Buchanan (2007)
• "Orientalism," inThe Oxford Encyclopaedia of British Literature, ed. David Scott Kastan andNancy Armstrong (2007)
• "Subjects/Sovereigns/Rogues,"Eighteenth-Century Studies 40.3 (Spring, 2007) 457–65
• "Sovereignty: Between Embodiment and Detranscendentalization,"Texas International Law Journal 41.3 (Summer, 2006) 427-46
• "In the Wake of the Novel: The Oriental Tale as National Allegory,"Novel: A Forum on Fiction 33.1 (1999) 5–31
• "Trop(icaliz)ing the Enlightenment: Raynal's Histoire des deux Indes,"Diacritics 23.3 (Fall, 1993) 48–68

• American academics of English literature
• Duke University faculty
• Loyola College, Chennai alumni
• Purdue University alumni
• Cornell University alumni
• Scholars from Chennai
• 1962 births
• 2016 deaths

• Use mdy dates from September 2021