Arunima Kundu

Research Interests

American literary and cultural studies, critical posthumanist theory, Afrofuturism, intercultural studies, postcolonial studies, intellectual history

Research Projects

Current academic project

PhD Dissertation: “Mediating Otherness in Cultural Discourse: the Planetary Posthuman Subject in Afrofuturist Science Fiction”

Previous projects

MA Thesis (for MA Intercultural Anglophone Studies): “Thinking Relationally: the Planetary Posthuman in Contemporary Hollywood Science Fiction”

MA Thesis (for MA Global History): “England as a Transformative Experience: Indian students’ perception of the Self and the Other in late nineteenth century Britain (1878-1894)”

Education & Employment

• Since 2022: Doctoral Research Fellow in the DFG research training group “Literatur und Öffentlichkeit in differenten Gegenwartskulturen” (“Literature and the Public Sphere in Differentiated Contemporary Cultures”), FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
• April-June 2024: Internship at the cultural office of the City of Erlangen in the organization team of the 21^st Erlangen International Comic Salon, 30 May to 2 June.
• 2020 – 2022: Student Assistant in the DFG Project “Economy and Epistemology of Gossip in 19th- and Early 20th-Century US-American Literature and Culture” at the University of Bayreuth.
• 2021: Member of the external commission for the internal re-accreditation of the BA English/American Studies and MA Intercultural Anglophone Studies courses for the Quality Assurance Office (Stabsstelle Qualitätssicherung), University of Bayreuth
• 2019 – 2022: M.A. Intercultural Anglophone Studies at the University of Bayreuth.
• 2016 – 2017: Editorial Board Member of the Global Histories: A Student Journal. Volume 3, Issue 1 & 2 (2017) ISSN: 2366-780X – at the Free University of Berlin
• 2017: Member of the organizing committee for the 3rd International Global History Student Conference, May 20-21, 2017, at the Free University of Berlin
• 2015 – 2018: M.A. Global History, joint degree program at Free University of Berlin and Humboldt University, Berlin.
• 2012 – 2018: B.A. (Honours) in History at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.

Publications

Journal Articles

Book Review of: Willey, Angela. Undoing Monogamy: The Politics of Science and Possibilities of Biology. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.

ISBN: 978-0-822-36159-6

Workshops, Lectures, and Papers

• Conference talk on November 9, 2023: “Affective Worldmaking and Counterpublic(s). Afrofuturism and Planetary Posthuman critique in NK Jemisin’s The City We Became” at the 33rd Annual Conference of the Postgraduate Forum (PGF) of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS/DGfA), PGF 2023 – “Spaces of Affect in the Americas”, Leibniz University Hannover, November 9-11, 2023
• Conference talk on May 20, 2023 (part of interdisciplinary panel “Literature and the Public Sphere”): “Mediating Blackness. The Afrofuturist Planetary Posthuman in Black Panther” at the SLSAeu Conference 2023, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), May 18-21, 2023
• Conference talk on May 16, 2023: “Mediating Otherness: The Afrofuturist Planetary Posthuman in Black Panther” at the 18th International Conference on Contemporary Narratives in English, University of Zaragoza, May 15-17, 2023
• As student assistant in organizing team: Speculative Endeavors. Cultures of Knowledge and Capital in the Long Nineteenth Century, digital conference, October 21-23, 2021
• As organizer and co-moderator: 3rd International Global History Student Conference, May 20-21, 2017

Miscellaneous

• Member of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS/DGfA)
• Academia.edu