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Professor Peter Arnds

Professor In (School Office Language Lit & Cult Stud)
      
Profile Photo

Professor Peter Arnds

Professor In (School Office Language Lit & Cult Stud)

 arndsp@tcd.ie

 


Peter Arnds works in the fields of Comparative Literature, German Literature, Holocaust Studies, Literary Translation and the Environmental Humanities. Since 2009 he has served as the Director of the Comparative Literature MPhil and previously directed the MPhil in Literary Translation until stepping down in 2016 to take over as Head of the Department of German, followed by two years as the Head of Italian. He currently serves as the Faculty Mentor to the Trinity Journal of Literary Translation. His eight book publications include four academic monographs, an award-nominated literary translation, an edited volume on translating Holocaust literature, and over 60 journal articles and book chapters. His fourth monograph, entitled 'Wolves at the Door: Migration, Dehumanization, Rewilding the World' was published by Bloomsbury in 2021 in paperbook and hardback. The book is a comparative study which engages a reading of the metaphors of dehumanization and racialization that lie at the intersection of political rhetoric, ecocriticism, and world literature. Dr Arnds was elected into the Academia Europaea, the pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences, in 2018. He is widely recognised as a leading expert on the works of the Nobel Laureate Günter Grass and was invited by the German writer to be among a select group of distinguished writers and scholars who were asked to contribute essays to a volume entitled 'Freipass' that Grass helped produce shortly before his death in 2015. In 2014 the IMPAC Dublin International Literary Award committee longlisted his translation of Swiss playwright Patrick Boltshauser's first novel (Rapids). During his time as the Writer-in-Residence at the Heinrich Böll Cottage (supported by a grant from the Irish Arts Council), he wrote and illustrated a poetry chapbook published in 2014 by Redfox Press. His short stories, poems, and first novel have been published in highly-regarded presses, anthologies, and literary magazines in the U.S. and Europe. In 2015 he was elected into the PEN International Centre for German Writers Abroad.
  18th Century intellectual history   children's literature   comparative literature and cultural theory   Exile literature   German Intellectual History   Literary theory   Literature and cultural history of the Enlightenment   literature of genocide, Holocaust   Literature, philosophy and ideology   magical realism   Modern German and Austrian literature   Modern Italian writers   mythology   Post war German literature   psychology and literature   Translation   Weimer Classicism and Romanticism   Writers and politics
Project Title
 Myth, Nationalism and Migration
From
06/06/2017
To
06/03/2018
Summary
This project studies how myths are being deployed in the rhetoric of new nationalist movements in Europe, Australia, and the US, particularly in relation to recent mass migrations. The aim of the project is to understand how sedentary European cultures employ traditional myths in literature and translate them into political contexts to cement new forms of group identification, often involving the demonization of others. Conversely, this study will also seek to shed light on how those in abject situations are generating new forms of empowerment through myth. The project will analyse contemporary scenarios in which myth plays a central role in the practice of reducing humans to the level of animals, and how literary motifs drawn from myth and folklore are used by political movements in acts of dehumanization involving the devaluation and ultimate destruction of the individual's humanity. The biopolitical tactic of reducing humans to the level of animals is a global phenomenon, with the language of racism teeming with animal metaphors.To arrive at a better understanding of the biopolitics involved in the contemporary migrant situation, this project will analyse how these metaphors, are viewed in sedentary versus indigenous cultures.
Funding Agency
Enterprise Ireland
Programme
Funding for International Research Projects
Project Title
 Translating Auschwitz: The Holocaust and the Politics of Translation
From
October 2016
To
September 2018
Summary
Principal Investigator and Academic Mentor for project with Dr Joanna Rzepafor her research on "Translating Auschwitz: The Holocaust and the Politics of Translation"
Funding Agency
IRC - Irish Research Council
Programme
Postdoctorate Fellowship
Project Title
 Myth Matters: Representation of Trauma and Political Violence in World Literature
From
To
Summary
This project examines the uses of myth and metaphor in world literature for the representation of trauma arising from political violence and human rights violations. It is aimed at both a multidisciplinary academic and a wider public audience and examines how myths and their biological metaphors in different cultures impact the biopolitical treatment of humans and the artistic representation of such treatment.
Funding Agency
European Research Council
Programme
Frontier Research
Project Type
ERC Advanced Grant
Project Title
 Translating Myth over Time: The Nation, War, Trauma
From
2016
To
Summary
This project explores comparatively how myths are used and misused in a collective nationalist context, in Europe and also beyond. We will examine how myths are being constructed at times of heightened nationalist pressure, how they keep shaping literary genres such as satire to offer a liberating valve to such pressures, and how the return of myth can aid in coming to terms with individual and collective trauma. The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9 AD), for example, where Roman forces were defeated by the Germanic tribes, returns as a national myth in Germany during the Napoleonic invasions as it does during the Third Reich. Under National Socialism many myths of Germanic origin were misused and ideologically abused - the myth of Wotan, the God of storm and war, or by Hitler appropriating for himself the ancient Germanic myth of the wolf man in the final days of the war. In literature after 1945 satires then liberate myth from its earlier political abuse but also take on the rationalist climate of the Adenauer period. On the other hand, mythological themes such as the descent into the underworld or the transformation of humans into animals abound in literary texts as a form of representation of totalitarian and colonial violence. We see this at work, for example, in Primo Levi's "If This is a Man" (1949), where the presence of myth is deeply connected to the potential loss of humanity but also helps Levi find a voice in the face of unspeakable atrocities. How does this mythical landscape in politics and culture map out in other countries around the world? How does myth influence literary genre, especially satire, in its reaction to terror? How are myths manipulated politically and liberated by art and literature? How do they aid victims of terror regimes and political violence in giving testimony?
Funding Agency
HERA (Humanities in European Research Area)
Programme
"Uses of the Past" Funding Call
Project Title
 Reassessing Satire in the Age of Terror
From
03/03/2015
To
03/12/2015
Summary
In light of attacks on satirists in France and Denmark and the persecution of authors writing satirical novels, this project addressed the pressing need for a reassessment of the history and values of the genre of satire in world literature. The aim of this research is to highlight the liberating potential of satire as a tool that unites humanity rather than dividing it, especially due to the universal aspects of satire with its recourse to mythological archetypes, humour, the grotesque, hyperbole and exaggeration.
Funding Agency
Enterprise Ireland
Programme
Funding for International Research Projects
Project Type
ERC Advanced Grant
Person Months
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Page 1 of 3
Details Date
External Examiner for Postgraduate Studies at the Faculty for Medieval and Modern Languages, Oxford University 2023-2025
Appraiser of Grant Applications for the Estonian Research Council (about 60 hours of work) 2024
External Supervisor for PhD thesis of Sara Casco Solis, University of Salamanca 2021-2024
Appraiser for ERC Grants 2023
examinership to evaluate the Ph.D. thesis of, Ms. Daisy Roshan Rebera, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, India 2023
Member, Coordinating Committee for the Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages (one of the research committees of the International Comparative Literature Association) 2018
Member, Scientific Committee, Universidad de Complutense, Madrid 2016
External Supervisor, Carole Mora, 'W.G. Sebald and Jungian Psychoanalysis,' Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, USA 2018-2020
Judge, International Undergraduate Awards 2016
President, Comparative Literature Association of Ireland 2014
Advisory Board, Metacritic Journal of Comparative Literature and Theory 2017
Assessor, Leverhulme Trust (UK) 2015
Editorial Board member, The German Quarterly 2003
Outside reader for Revue Frontières, Université du Québec à Montréal 2011
External Reader, Camden House 2010
External examiner for Vanesa Cotroneo, Friedrich Alexander Univ, Erlangen, Germany 2020
Language Skill Reading Skill Writing Skill Speaking
English Fluent Fluent Fluent
French Fluent Fluent Fluent
German Fluent Fluent Fluent
Italian Fluent Fluent Fluent
Spanish Medium Medium Medium
Details Date From Date To
Academia Europaea 2018 present
President, Comparative Literature Association of Ireland 2014 present
Modern Language Association 1995 present
American Comparative Literature Association 1998 2013
Elected to the PEN Centre for German Writers Abroad, part of PEN International 2015 present
Peter Arnds, "Animals to the Slaughter: An Eco-Literary Approach to Genocide", New York University Press, 2027, ca. 300 pagespp, Book, ACCEPTED
Creaturely Impulses and Biopolitics in Günter Grass's Multispecies Literature in, Camden House Companion Series: Günter Grass, Rochester, NY, Boydell&Brewer, Camden House, 2026, [Peter Arnds], Book Chapter, IN_PRESS
P. Arnds, "On the 'Übertier' in Literature about the Holocaust", Patterns of Prejudice, 2026, Journal Article, IN_PRESS
Peter Arnds, "Biopolitics and Companion Species in Contemporary Novels of Forced Migration", Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 27, (2), 2025, p1-25-, Notes: [https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2025.2498361], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Peter Arnds, Caitríona Ní Dhúill, "Refuge and the Wilded Classroom: Figure, Practice, Space", German Life & Letters, 2025, p321 - 341, Notes: [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/glal.70000], Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Peter Arnds, "Aale, Unken und Ratten: Günter Grass` politische Ekeltiere", Studia Germanica Gedanesia, 2025, Notes: [will also appear in Polish.], Journal Article, ACCEPTED
"Die Rezeption von Günter Grass im angelsächsischen Raum" in, editor(s)Christoph Jürgensen / Michael Scheffel , GÜNTER-GRASS-HANDBUCH, Berlin, de Gruyter, 2024, pp716 - 721, [Peter Arnds], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
"Migranten zwischen Schweizer Alpen und dem Mittelmeer: Peter Stamms Weit über das Land und die Odyssee als interkultureller Raum" in, editor(s)Zelic, T. et al. , Mediterrane Räume: Geschichte und Gegenwart eines interkulturellen Austauschs, Bielefeld, Germany, Transcript Verlag, 2024, pp37 - 48, [Peter Arnds], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
"Wolves in the Sanctuary: Ecopolitics and Forced Migration in the Literature of the Anthropocene" in, Contemporary Representations of Forced Migration in Europe. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Culture and Human Rights., London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, pp263 - 285, [Peter Arnds], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
"Walking Away, Going Astray in Alpine Spaces: Homeric Wanderings in Peter Stamm's 'To the Back of Beyond'" in, editor(s)Richard McClelland , The Draw of the Alps: Alpine Summits and Borderlands in Modern German-speaking Culture, Berlin, de Gruyter, 2023, pp159 - 176, [Peter Arnds], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  DOI
  

Page 1 of 16
Peter Arnds, 'The Animals Inside Us', Syntalk Radio Talkshow, Mumbai, India, 2019, -, Broadcast, PERFORMED
Peter Arnds, Seeking Sanctuaries: Dehumanization and Precarious Cities in World Literature, Challenging Precarity International Conference, Aurobindu University, Surat, January, 2019, Aurobindo U, India and the U of Northampton, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Arnds, Peter, 'Ich bin ein Berliner', John F. Kennedy, the man, the myth, the legacy, The History Show, RTE Radio 1, 2017, 1 - 4, Broadcast, PERFORMED
Arnds, Peter, 'Lycanthropy 101', Radio Adelaide, 2016, -, Broadcast, PUBLISHED
Arnds, Peter, 'Germany Facing Its Past', The History Channel, RTE, 2014, -, Broadcast, PRESENTED
Arnds, Peter, 'Alan Turing', RTE, History Channel, 2014, -, Broadcast, PRESENTED
Arnds, Peter, '1914 Christmas Truce ', Dublin, RTE, History Show, 2014, -, Broadcast, PRESENTED
Arnds, Peter, 'Intellectual Life in Germany', Ulster Theatre Festival, RTE, 2011, -, Broadcast, PRESENTED
Arnds, Peter, 'Why Indians Read Hitler's Mein Kampf', Newstalk Radio Show, Dublin, 2009, -, Broadcast, PRESENTED
Arnds, Peter, 'Greek Tragedy Today', Modern Language Association, US, 2004, -, Notes: [Interviewed by Sally Placksin for the MLA radio show, What's the Word.], Broadcast, PRESENTED

  


Award Date
Elected into the Academia Europaea 2018
Honorary Adjunct Professorship, Bennett University, Delhi, India (online) 1/22-1/23
Longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award for "Rapids" (English translation of Patrick Boltshauser's novel Stromschnellen) 2016
Fellow, TCD 2012
Elected into PEN Centre for German Writers Abroad, part of PEN International 2015
Visiting Professorship, Department of English, University of Salamanca 2019
Visiting Professorship at the JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice. Residency funded by Univ. of Adelaide's European Union Centre for Global Affairs. 2016
Visiting Fellow at Institute of Advanced Study at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India 2012 & 2015
All-Ireland Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, awarded by The Undergraduate Awards Committee for European Studies student Ruth Murphy's winning essay on Primo Levi, the Muselmann and Viktor Frankl in the category of Social Sciences 2015
Writer-in-Residence - Heinrich Böll Foundation/Böll Cottage, Achill Island (co-funded by the Arts Council of Ireland) 2012
All-Ireland Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, awarded by The Undergraduate Awards Committee for German Studies student Laura Sinnott's winning essay on The Tin Drum in the field of Languages and Linguistics 2011
Awarded William L. Stamey Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching, College of Arts and Sciences, Kansas State University 1999
Keynote Address: "The Lost Art of Happenstance: Randomness and Travel Literature" British Comparative Literature Association Triennial Conference, Queens University, Belfast September 15, 2020
Keynote Address: "Wolves and the Poetics of Migration: Translating Theory, Rethinking Comparative Literature" Locations and Dislocations of Theory, Cluj Napoca, Romania March 9, 2020
Keynote Address: "Mythical Realism North and South: Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and Günter Grass's The Tin Drum", Rethinking the Global North and South: Literature, Film, Media, Lucknow, India, Shri Ramswaroop University February 2, 2019
Keynote Address: "Sognare lupi: Dal mito a Freud," Myth and Dreams, International Conference, University of Bologna May 23, 2019
Keynote Address: "Seeking Sanctuaries: Dehumanization and Precarious Cities in World Literature," at "Challenging Precarity. International Conference." Auro University, Surat, India January 28, 2019
Keynote Address: "Into the Cold: On the Uses and Abuses of Water in Literature and Politics," at Traumatic Modernities: From Comparative Literature to Medical Humanities, International Conference and Seminars Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland April 19, 2017
Keynote Address: "Bodies and Minds in Flux: Lycanthropy and Politics in Myth and World Literature", The Return of the Body: Revisiting Cultures of the Body, JNU Centre for English Studies February 10, 2016
Keynote Address: "Myth, Emotion, Trauma: Mapping Myth and Metaphor in World Literature", 4th International Conference on Myth Criticism (Myth and Emotions), Spain, Universidad de Complutense, Madrid October 25, 2016
Visiting Research Fellow: Center for Gender and Women's Culture in Asia, Nara Womens' University (with Dr Jennifer Edmond) - Nara, Japan March 2016
Dr Arnds is the author of 5 academic monographs in highly acclaimed presses (two since his last promotion in 2024 as part of the backlog candidates). His fifth completed monograph "Animals to the Slaughter: An Eco-Literary Approach to Genocide" was accepted by New York University Press for their prestigious 'Animals in Context' Series to appear in 2027. This is a major work in the Environmental Humanities, ground-breaking in the fields of genocide studies and migration studies, and with high impact on human and animal rights. Arnds is also one of the foremost scholars of the cultural and political history of wolves. His fourth monograph was published in 2021 in paperback and hardback by the US division of Bloomsbury. Entitled 'Wolves at the Door: Migration, Dehumanization, Rewilding the World' it was named in an Amazon list of top 10 new releases in the Environmental Humanities in January of 2023. Arnds' ecocritical monographs have transformed the Environmental Humanities by examining how the metaphorical representation of nonhuman species contributes to the politics of dehumanization in genocide and the contemporary political migration rhetoric, but also how it can aid or prevent the extinction of animals and how the politics of rewilding (the reintroduction of species to a region) interacts with biodiversity, cultural diversity and cultural production. In addition, Arnds has introduced new terms and concepts in ecocriticism and genocide studies, such as the concept of the 'bestia sacra' which is being used widely in the Environmental Humanities. Arnds is internationally recognised for his scholarship on the Nobel Laureate Günter Grass and for his work on race, genocide, trauma, and representations of the Third Reich in literature, culture, and translation. He continues to be invited to contribute to publications in this area, eg., the `Günter Grass Handbook' published by De Gruyter, the forthcoming Grass Handbook for the Boydell& Brewer/Camden House Companion Series, or the Grass Studies Journal in Gdansk. His work on Grass has been translated into Polish. Dr Arnds has been invited regularly to give keynote lectures, his prominence as a researcher has earned him a membership in the Academia Europaea, and he has participated in several funded global research networks including "Challenging Precarity: A Global Network" and "Narratives of Resilience and Happiness", working together with scholars in India, the UK, Spain, Italy, Poland, Germany, the US, Australia, and Canada. These have been highly productive in their research output over the last four years. Arnds has worked in the fields of Comparative Literature, German Studies, Italian Studies, the Environmental Humanities and Literary Translation. In addition to his five monographs he is the sole editor of two academic volumes, has published over 70 journal articles and book chapters, given 150 presentations worldwide, and has also had proven success in publishing in the creative arts, including two novels, multiple stories and poetry in prestigious presses, and many public readings from his work. He is a member of PEN International and his translation of the novel "Rapids" was long-listed for the 2016 International Dublin Literary Award.