Biography

Arup K. Chatterjee (PhD) is Professor at the 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 (PhD) at the School of Language, Literature, and Culture 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 2026, he founded the broadcasting channel, The Unofficial Seminar. Arup has been encouraged to recognize his own intellectual and public-facing work as cultural history (including history of science, philosophy, economics, literature, and intellectual ideas), because that is how his publishers, readers, and international indexes have come to define his writings.

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 what is now a bestseller, The Great Indian Railways, 2018) and Indians in London: From the Birth of the East India Company to Independent India (2021); Adam’s Bridge: Sacrality, Performance, and Heritage of an Oceanic Marvel (Routledge 2024), and Ram Setu: The Memoirs of an Enchanted Bridge (Rupa 2025). Between 2015 and 2019, he helped write the history of Deloitte India. In 2017-18, Arup was a visiting fellow at Brunel University London. In 2022-23, he was a Research Associate/Visiting Scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. From January to July 2024, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Faroe Islands (Torshavn, Kingdom of Denmark). In 2026, he was appointed as an Associated Researcher at the South China University of Technology, in Guangzhou, in recognition of his work on blue humanities.

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, Money control, and many others, apart from contributing to Coldnoon, and authoring over thirty peer-reviewed academic papers in globally renowned journals. He has been interviewed at All India Radio, Writers in Conversation, SBS Radio Australia, The Quint, BBC India, India Today, AajTak, 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; colonial and postcolonial historiography of India; Vedanta and nondualism; Indian philosophy and Jungian psychoanalysis. Arup practices calligraphy as a pastime. His family and he attempt to engage in supporting animal rights and the wellbeing of urban animals. 
Arup K. Chatterjee was elected as Secretary of the International Small Islands Studies Association (Scotland) during its annual general meeting in Jaeundo, South Korea, July, 2026.