ASECS Announces Winner of 2020 Srinivas Aravamudan Prize - James Mulholland

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE APRIL 2020

ASECS Announces Winner of 2020 Srinivas Aravamudan Prize

The American Society for Eighteenth-Century (ASECS) awards the Srinivas Aravamudan Prize annually to an article that pushes the boundaries, geographical and conceptual, of eighteenth-century studies, especially by using a transnational, comparative, or cosmopolitan.

In 2020, the Aravamudan Prize is given to James Mulholland for his article “An Indian It-Narrative and the Problem of Circulation: Reconsidering a Useful Concept for Literary Study,” which appeared in Modern Language Quarterly in 2018. Examining the overabundant employment of “circulation” as a metaphor and method of interpretation, Mulholland challenges literary scholars to reconsider how uncritical use of the framework of “circulation” reproduces power relations underlying imperial forms of traffic. By deploying the concept of “coagulation” instead, Mulholland, an associate professor of English at North Carolina State University, demonstrates how such a model would work through an engaging reading of The Adventures of a Rupee. His work provides a new reading methodology for globalism.

The American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies is a not-for-profit educational organization founded to promote the study of all aspects of the eighteenth century. It sponsors conferences, awards research fellowships and prizes, and publishes Eighteenth-Century Studies and Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture. Eligibility information for the 2021 Aravamudan Prize is available at www.asecs.org or by contacting the Business Office at asecsoffice@gmail.com