Biography

Dr. Arup K. Chatterjee is Professor of English, at the Jindal Global Law School, OP Jindal Global University. In 2014, he was a recipient of the Charles Wallace fellowship, to United Kingdom. In 2017-18, he was a visiting fellow at the Brunel University London. He received his doctorate from the Center for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, for his dissertation titled: ‘Hillmaking: Architecture and Literature from the Doon Valley.’

He is the Founder Chief Editor of Coldnoon: International Journal of Travel Writing& Travelling Cultures. He is also the author of, the widely reviewed and acclaimed, The Purveyors of Destiny: A Cultural Biography of the Indian Railways (Bloomsbury, 2017) and The Great Indian Railways (Bloomsbury, 2018) He is currently engaged in writing a history of a Big 4 audit and consulting firm, in India. He is a prolific author and has contributed numerous articles on history, literature, culture and politics, to magazines such as The Hindu, Hindustan Times, The Conversation, Scroll, The Wire, DailyO and Huffington Post, The Caravan, apart from contributing to Coldnoon. He has been or is about to be interviewed in All India Radio, The Missing Slate, Writers in Conversation, SBS Radio Australia, The Quint and BBC India.

His interests are in the history of British imperialism, politics and philosophy; British cultural and historical encounters with India; and colonial and postcolonial historiography of India; Vedanta and Nondualism; and Indian philosophy and psychoanalysis. His forthcoming book is on the history of Indians living in London since the time of Shakespeare.

Previous Work Experience

• Arup K. Chatterjee (PhD) is Professor of English, at the Jindal Global Law School, OP Jindal Global University. He began his career as a freelance journalist at The Telegraph, India. In 2014, he was a recipient of the Charles Wallace fellowship, to United Kingdom. He was awarded his degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, in 2014-15, for his doctoral dissertation titled Hillmaking: Architecture and Literature from the Doon Valley. Between 2011 and 2018, Arup was the Chief Editor of Coldnoon: International Journal of Travel Writing& Travelling Cultures, which he founded in September 2011.
• In 2012, Arup translated the Urdu poems of Firaq Gorakhpuri, published in the biography written by Ajai Man Singh, The Poet of Pain and Ecstasy (Roli 2015). He is also the author of the widely reviewed and acclaimed books, The Purveyors of Destiny: A Cultural Biography of the Indian Railways (Bloomsbury, 2017; revised and updated as The Great Indian Railways, 2018) and Indians in London: From the Birth of the East India Company to Independent India (2021). Between 2015 and 2019, he helped write the history of Deloitte India. In 2017-18, he was a visiting fellow at Brunel University London. In 2022-23, Arup was a Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Come the summer of 2024, he will be a Visiting Professor at the University of Faroe Islands (Kingdom of Denmark).
• In addition to his teaching and research, Arup has contributed numerous articles on history, literature, culture, and politics, to The Hindu, The Indian Express, The Telegraph, The Indian Express, The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Conversation, Scroll, The Wire, DailyO and Huffington Post, The Caravan, Moneycontrol, and many others, apart from contributing to Coldnoon, and authoring over thirty peer-reviewed academic papers in globally renowned journals. Arup’s forthcoming books include The Great Indian Railway Saga (Roli 2023) and the intellectual history of Adam’s Bridge/Ram Setu (Routledge 2024). He has been interviewed at All India Radio, Writers in Conversation, SBS Radio Australia, The Quint, BBC India, India Today, Aaj Tak, among other media networks, besides being the author of over seventy articles and academic papers in national and international publications.
• In 2022-23, Arup was a key consultant (‘critical friend’) with Horniman’s Museum, London, where he provided intellectual and scholarly support to the organization’s tea exhibition, in the light of Arup’s own research on tea history and his theoretical concept, ‘gastromythology’ (which he introduced and defined in the realm of food studies, consumption studies, and literary theory, in 2020). Arup’s scholarly interests lie in the history of British imperialism, politics, and philosophy; Victorian studies and British cultural encounters with India; cultural materialism; colonial and postcolonial historiography of India; ancient Indian philosophy; Jungian psychoanalysis; gastromythology. Arup is also an award-winning poet (though he no longer publishes poetry) and practices calligraphy as a pastime. His family and he attempt to engage in supporting animal rights and the wellbeing of urban animals.