Faculty Spotlight: Aruna Krishnamurthy

 

Aruna Krishnamurthy grew up in New Delhi, India, and attended Delhi University where she got her Bachelors and Master degrees in English. She came to the United States in 1994 in pursuit of PhD in English at University of Florida. Aruna was one of the first international students in the English department at UF in those days. She got her doctorate in 1999 in field of eighteenth and nineteenth century working-class literature, a somewhat under-represented area in English studies then and now. She is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor society.

Aruna is currently Professor of English Studies here, as well as Chair of the English department. She has also served as the President of the Faculty and Librarians union for four years and currently serves as its Vice President. Aruna teaches a wide range of courses, from Literary Theory to British and World Literature. Over the years she has developed both teaching and research interest in the field of South Asian literature and travel writing in the age of Imperialism.

Her scholarly work extends in both directions: British Literature and South Asian studies. She is currently working on two projects, one,  that studies vernacular literature of twentieth century India (focusing at the moment on Hindi literature, one of the 22 languages in India!) and travel writing during the Raj (or British rule in India). 

Aruna is widely traveled (as is the case with most international faculty and staff here!) and has two children. She and her husband will be empty-nesters soon. These days the only question on her mind is: where did all the time go? She likes to read in her free time. She also likes to cook, spend time with friends, and binge watch detective shows.

Select Publications

Book and Book Chapters:

The Working-Class Intellectual in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century England, ed. and intro. by Aruna Krishnamurthy, Ashgate Publications, UK, 2009.

 “Coffee-House vs. Ale-House: Notes on the Making of the Eighteenth-Century Working-Class Intellectual,” in Making of the Working-Class Intellectual in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century England. The Working-Class Intellectual in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century England. edited by Aruna Krishnamurthy, Ashgate Publications, UK, 2009. 

“‘The Constant Action of our Lab’ring Hands’: Mary Collier’s Demystification of Work and Womanhood in the Early Eighteenth Century,” in Everyday Revolutions: Eighteenth-Century Women Transforming the Public and Private, edited by Marta Kvande and Diane E. Boyd, University of Delaware Press, 2008.

"Teaching the Politics and Poetics of Land through William Cobbett's Rural Rides" in Teaching Laboring-Class British Literature of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, edited by Kevin Binfield, William J. Christmas, The Modern Language Association of America: New York, 2018. 

Forthcoming, “Upendra Nath Ashk’s Falling Walls: Bildungsroman of the Post-Independence Lost Youth of India,” in The Postcolonial Bildungsroman, edited by Arnab D Roy and Paul Ugor, 2022.

Refereed Journals:

"A Contrapuntal Eliot," in Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, Vol 2, No 1, Spring 2018. 

“The Revolutionary Man in Naxalite Literature” Journal for the Study of Radicalism, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2017, pp. 135–162. 

“World Literature in the Classroom: Some Pedagogical Considerations,” Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies Vol. 4, No. 2, 2016

“Sweet and Sour in Diasporic Imagination” published in The Forager Magazine (online journal on food and culture)

 “Assailing the THING: Politics of Space in William Cobbett’s Rural Rides,” in Cardiff Corvey: Reading The Romantic Text. No. 7 (December 2001).

“More Than Abstract Knowledge: Friedrich Engels in Industrial Manchester.” Journal of Victorian Literature and Culture. 28.2 (2000): 427-48.