Srinivas Aravamudan, Arts and Sciences Professor of English at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, U.S., died on April 13, 2016. He was 53.
Orientalism, or the idea that the peoples and societies of “the East” — including the Middle East, South and East Asia, and Africa — are perceived by Europeans and Americans as culturally underdeveloped and impervious to transformation, was a concept that Professor Aravamudan changed, forever. While not absolving “the West” of its imperialism and prejudices, he unravelled the complexities of what is usually considered a one-way cultural offence, uncovering in a series of award-winning publications and public addresses the interdependence between the literary traditions of the East and the West, and showing how indebted Western philosophers and writers were to both a fictional Orient and a factual Asia and global South.
Born in ChennaiBorn in Chennai in 1962, Aravamudan took degrees from Madras University (Loyola College), Purdue, and Cornell. Before joining Duke’s Department of English in 2000, He taught at the University of Utah and the University of Washington, and held faculty appointments in Duke’s Department of Romance Studies and the programme in Literature.
An internationally recognised scholar of 18th-century British and French literature, postcolonial studies and critical theory, Professor Aravamudan transformed the study of 18th Century literature and the Enlightenment, revealing the layers of meaning and intent in the writings of such literary giants as Defoe, Diderot, Swift, and Voltaire, especially regarding the orientalist imaginary. Among his books are Tropicopolitans: Colonialism and Agency , 1688-1804 (1999), Guru English: South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan Language (2006 & 2007) and Enlightenment Orientalism: Resisting the Rise of the Novel (2012). His place in literary studies was underscored by his term as president of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.
At Duke, Professor Aravamudan was Director of the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, Dean of the Humanities, and Director of the Humanities Writ Large initiative. Through the Franklin Humanities Institute’s innovative programmes and interdisciplinary forums, he encouraged conversations, partnerships, and collaborations that fostered creative and fresh humanistic research, writing, and teaching.
Tremendous influenceAs Dean of the Humanities, he wielded tremendous influence, inspiring humanities faculty and faculty affiliated with the Social and Natural Sciences to engage in meaningful scholarly exchanges, resulting in a re-energised intellectual community. Humanities Writ Large, a multi-year initiative he designed and conceived, is a major Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded programme.
By supporting undergraduate research, facilitating emergent humanities networks and laboratories, and funding visiting faculty and faculty “bridge” appointments, it renovated the humanities at Duke. His activism for the humanities extended beyond Duke, notably as president of the International Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes. Professor Aravamudan’s intellectual fervour, commitment to the arts and humanities, and demonstrable pleasure in forming communities of learning are the hallmarks of his legacy.
( Richard J. Powell is Dean of the Humanities and the John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art & Art History at Duke University )
