Arnab Dutta Roy is an Assistant Professor of English at Florida Gulf Coast University
(FGCU). His research is located at the intersection of postcolonialism, human rights
theory, and modern South Asian literature, and has appeared or is forthcoming in journals
including the Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies, South Asian Review, American Book Review, Literary Universals Project, Comparatist, Humanities, and the APA Studies on Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies. His ongoing works include a co-edited volume titled The Postcolonial Bildungsroman: Narratives of Youth, Representational Politics and
Aesthetic Reinventions (Forthcoming with University of Alberta Press) and a co-edited special issue titled
Constructing the Other: Narrative Empathy and the Ethics of Border-Crossing in World
Literature (Forthcoming with the Journal of World Literature). He is currently also working
on a monograph titled Universalisms in South Asian Literature that draws on interdisciplinary work in postcolonial theory and human rights to analyze
literary responses to colonialism from South Asia. At FGCU, he teaching both graduate
and undergraduate courses on world literature and postcolonial theory.
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Education
Toggle Education
- Ph.D. in Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Graduate Certificate in Human
Rights Studies, University of Connecticut
- M.A. in English Studies, Illinois State University
- B.A. in English and Philosophy, University of Allahabad, India
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Specialties
Toggle Specialties
- South Asian literature and culture
- Human Rights
- Postcolonial Studies
- Modernist Studies
- World Literatures
- Literary Theory
- Literary Universals
- Narrative Empathy
- Cognitive and Linguistic Approaches to Literature
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Courses Offered
Toggle Courses OfferedGraduate Courses
- Studies in Comp Lit Post 1800 “ Empathy and the Ethics of Border-Crossing in World Literature”
Undergraduate Courses
a. Intermediate and Upper Division
- Comparative Literature -Empire and Postcolonial Fictions
- Selected Topics: Lit Studies Post 1800 “ Of Literature, Colonialism and Culture Identity”
- Studies in Later British Literature “The British Raj: The Center and The Periphery”
- World Lit & Culture post-1800 “The Global Legacy of Colonialism”
b. Lower Division
- Intro to World Lit & Culture II
- Composition I
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Publications
Toggle PublicationsPeer Reviewed Journal Articles
- “Finding the Empathetic Genre: A Critique of Love and Heroism in Mirza Waheed’s The
Book of Gold Leaves.” Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies. December 2021.
- “Ethical Universals in Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies: A Posthumanist Critique of Universal
Human Rights.” Humanities 5.3 (2016): 64.
- “Deconstructing Universalism: Rabindranath Tagore’s Vision of Humanity.”South Asian
Review. 36.2. Regular(2015): 177-94.
Peer Reviewed Encyclopedic Entry
- “Ethical Universals and Postcolonialism.” Literary Universals Project (2017)
Book Reviews and Focus Pieces
- “The South Asian American Canon.” American Book Review, vol. 42 no. 3, 2021, p. 7-8.
- Review of The World in a Grain of Sand: Postcolonial Literature and Radical Universalism
By Nivedita Majumdar. Verso, 2021 (Forthcoming in The Comparatist)
Interviews
- Universals and Mythology: An Interview with Wendy Doniger, May 2021
- Viet Thanh Nguyen. Co-interviewed with Yarran Hominh and Minh Nguyen (Forthcoming
in a Special Issue on Identity and Solidarity in the journal APA Studies on Asian
and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies in Fall 2023)
Manuscripts Under Preparation
- The Postcolonial Bildungsroman; Narratives of Youth, Representational Politics and
Aesthetic Reinventions, co-edited with Dr. Paul Ugor ( Forthcoming with University
of Alberta Press)
- Constructing the Other: Narrative Empathy and the Ethics of Border-Crossing in World
Literature, co-edited with Dr. Shailen Mishra (Special Issue, Forthcoming with Journal
of World Literature)
- “From Modernizing Tradition to Traditionalizing Modernity: U.R. Ananthamurthy’s Samskara
as Postcolonial Bildungsroman” (Submitted with Genre)
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Conference Presentations
Toggle Conference PresentationsMost Recent
- “The Search for the South Asian Bildungsroman: Rethinking Modernity in Literature.”
South Asian Literary Association (SALA), Virtual, April 1-2, 2023
- “Empathetic Border-Crossing and Planetary Entanglements in South Asian Literature.”
American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), Chicago IL, March 16th to 19th,
2023
- “Deconstructing Cosmopolitanism: A Critique of Ethics and Religious Identity in UR
Ananthamurthy’s Samskara.” British Commonwealth & Postcolonial Studies Conference
(BCPS), Virtual, Feb 10-11, 2023
- “Futures of Empathetic Border-Crossings in the Fictions of Amitav Ghosh.” The Society
for Comparative Literature and the Arts. Cincinnati, Ohio, Oct 6-8th, 2022
- “Thinking Beyond the Anthropocene: Empathy for Humans and Nonhumans in Amitav Ghosh’s
Gun Island” American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), Virtual, June 15-18,
2022
- “Empathy in the Era of the Anthropocene: The Ethics of Care in Amitav Ghosh’s novels,”
British Commonwealth & Postcolonial Studies Conference (BCPS), Virtual, Feb 14th to
18th, 2022
- “Towards a Decolonial Cosmopolitanism: Tradition and Modernity in UR Ananthamurthy’s
Samskara” Modern Language Association (MLA), Washington DC, January 6-9th, 2022
- “Towards Orthodoxy: M. Anantanarayanan’s The Silver Pilgrimage as Bildungsroman” American
Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), Virtual, April 8th to 11th , 2021