Dr Arun Sood

Arun Sood is a Scottish-Indian writer, critic, and musician working across multiple forms. His interests include the legacies of colonialism, global literatures, orality, print culture, diasporic identities, and cultural memory. These interests are explored through both critical works and creative practice, ranging from academic monographs to fiction as well as multiform collaborations with musicians and visual artists. He was appointed Lecturer in English at the University of Plymouth in 2018. Previously, Arun held a postdoctoral Fulbright Award at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., where he spent a time researching and writing his first book, Robert Burns and the USA, c.1786-1866: Poetry, Print and Memory 1786-1866 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). During this period, he was also named Kluge Fellow at the John W. Kluge Centre (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.).  

Current Activites

• Arun was recently awarded an Explore Knowledge Exchange grant for the project Resisting Silence: Revealing everyday lives of plantations through material, oral, and archival histories. The project is co-led with museum curator Dr Marenka Thompson-Odlum (Pitt Rivers Museum) and archaeologist Dr Ashley Coutu (University of Oxford). It focuses attention on the neglected landscapes of colonial estates on the island of St Lucia (a British colony between 1814-1979), and the lives of enslaved people who laboured on them
• In February 2022 Arun released a 12" vinyl album and corresoponding artbook titled Searching Erskine, which explores the intersections between place, landscape, and memory. It is available as a digitial release, book, and vinyl record here. It has received attention from several shows on BBC Radio 3, BBC 6 Music and BBC Scotland. The album was also The Guardian's 'Folk Album of the Month' in March,
• Arun will publish his debut novel New Skin For The Old Ceremony with 404 INK in September 2022. The novel explores the intersections between personal histories and broader colonial processes.  It is available for pre-order here. 
• Arun is currently co-editing an Edinburgh University Press cross-journal special issue on 'Race and Racism in Scotland. The call for papers is available here. He is also editing a special issue of the Edinburgh University Press peer-reviewed journal The Burns Chronicle on 'Burns and North America'.
• In Autumn 2022, Arun is due to publish a peer-reviewd article on Mungo Park's Travels in West Africa in the peer-reviewed journal Eighteenth-Century Fiction.

Qualifications

PhD Scottish Literature, University of Glasgow (2016)
MA English Language, Literature, and Culture, University of Amsterdam (2010)
BA/MA Honours English, University of Aberdeen (2009)
Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, University of Plymouth (2018)

Teaching interests

Currently, Arun leads/teaches the following modules across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes:

ENGL501 Romanticism
ENGL502 Gothic Fiction: Villains, Virgins, and Vampires
ENGL603 Modernism
ENGL404 Critical Theory 

Research interests

Research groups

• Justice and Imagination in Global Displacement

Grants & contracts

Fulbright Scholar Award (£40,000) (Aug 2016-April 2017)

• Kluge Fellowship, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (£9000) (Nov 2016-April 2017)
• AHRC Glasgow Life Postdoctoral Award (£12,000) (Jan 2016-April 2016)
• Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities ‘Showcase’ Award (&1500) (April 2016)
• Eccles Centre Postgraduate Award in American Studies, British Library (£600) (Jun 2014)
• AHRC International Research Fellow, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (£7000) (Nov 2013)
• David Fleming Brown Scholarship, Columbia University (£500) (Mar 2013)
• CABLES Grant, University of Glasgow (£700) (Oct 2013)
• Atlantic Cable Grant, University of Glasgow (£700) (Nov 2012)
• AHRC PhD Studentship, ‘Editing Robert Burns For the 21st Century’ (£40,000) (Oct 2012)
• Seafield Memorial Prize, University of Aberdeen (most distinguished scholar in honours year) (Jul 2009)

Links

www.arunsood.com