Rupa Viswanath earned a PhD (Distinction) in Religion from Columbia University in 2006. Before coming to Penn, in 2006-8, she was a Sutasoma Trust Research Fellow at the Faculty of History and Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge. Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersections of the fields of history, religion, and politics. To this end her work, primarily focused in Tamil South India, has considered such things as toleration and secularism as practices of both colonial and postcolonial statecraft, the history of Christian missionary activity and its implications for understanding encounters between conflicting forms of thought; and the relations among caste, class and religion. Her current book project charts the emergence of "the Pariah Problem"-- that is, the emergence of "untouchability" conceived as a problem requiring official amelioration-- in 19th-century Madras, and the practices instituted to render the Pariah a specific kind of religio-moral, economic and political person.
Courses for Fall 2008 and Spring 2009:
Fall 08:
SAST 644 Religion and Secularism: Concepts, Practices, Policies
SAST 143: Religion in Modern India
Spring 09:
SAST 701: The Power of Representation: History, Politics, Literature
SAST 008: India: Culture and Society
Education:
PhD (with distinction), South Asian Religions. October 2006, Columbia University, New York.
MPhil (with distinction), South Asian Religions. February 2003, Columbia University, New York.
MA, Creative Writing. May 1997, New York University, New York.
BA (cum laude), Mathematics. May 1995, Columbia University, New York
Selected Awards:
2006 Pollard Prize, Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
2005-6 American Association of University Women Dissertation Fellowship.
2004-5 Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship.
2004-5 Mellon Fellowship, Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
2003-4 Columbia University Traveling Fellowship.
2003 American Institute of Indian Studies Junior Fellowship for Dissertation Research.
1997 Five-year Mellon Fellowship for Graduate Study, Columbia University, New York, NY.
1995-6 New York Times Fellowship for Creative Writing, New York University, New York, NY.
1995 Cornell-Woolrich Prize for Fiction, Columbia University, New York, NY.
Select Publications and Invited Papers
2008 “Spiritual Slavery, Material Malaise: ‘Untouchables’ and Religious Neutrality in Colonial South India,” Historical Research, (forthcoming; currently available online).
2008 “Religion, Secularism, Solicitude: Ways of Speaking about Pariah Conversion in Colonial Madras”. Paper presented at the Comparative Histories of Asia Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
2008 “The Realm of Rights”. Paper presented at the South Asian History Seminar, University of Oxford.
2005 “The Pariah Problem.” Paper presented at the South Asian History Seminar, School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
2005 “Six White Horsemen: The Visibility of Missionary Patronage.” Paper presented at the Anglo-American Conference of Historians, London.
1999 Articles on “Ayyappan,” “Shirdi Sai Baba,” “Brahmakumaris” and “Sathya Sai Baba,” in Wendy Doniger, ed., Encyclopedia of World Religions, (Merriam Webster: New York).
Graduate Groups
South Asia Studies
History
Religion
