South Asia Studies
Associate Professor
Director of Undergraduate Studies, Comparative Literature
814 Williams Hall
215-898-7475
215-573-2138
Education
Ph.D. University of California at Berkeley
B.A. Columbia University
Research Interests
Sanskrit language and literature (belles-lettres, epics, and drama); grammar and linguistics; Indian philosophy and intellectual history; Pali, Prakrit, Hindi and Gujarati language and literature; translation theory.
Selected Publications
BOOKS:
Text to Tradition: The Naiṣadhīyacarita and Literary Community in South Asia. Columbia University Press, 2014.
Interview with Critical Margins:
Āndhraśabdacintāmaṇi: A Grammar of Telugu Language in Sanskrit [co-authored with R.V.S. Sundaram], Central Institute of Indian Languages, 2016.
Kavirājamārgam: The Way of the King of Poets [co-authored with R.V.S. Sundaram], Jawarharlal Nehru University (Kannada Language Chair) and Manohar Publishers, 2017.
https://www.thehindu.com/search/?q=kavirajamargam (press blurb)
An Ocean of Gems: Essays on Language, Linguistics, and Education in Memory of Dhanesh Jain, Primus Books, 2025.
ARTICLES and BOOK CHAPTERS:
- "The Mahābhārata as India's National Epic" in National Epics. Ed. David Wallace. Oxford University Press. [Forthcoming]
- "An Epic 20th-Century Sanskrit Life: Baladev Upadhyaya and Srinivas Rath's Baladevacarita-mahākāvya" in Modern Sanskrit: Dialogue across Times, Spaces, and Religions [Series: Dialogues in South Asian Traditions: Religion, Philosophy, Literature, and History]. Eds. Laurie Patton, Charles Preston, and Finnian Gerety. [Forthcoming]
- "Sources of Authority in Post-Classical Hinduism" in A Cultural History of Hinduism in the Post-Classical Age (800-1500 CE). Ed. Karen Pechilis. Pgs. 25-47. Bloomsbury Press. (2024) [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/cultural-history-of-hinduism-9781350024434/] [https://www.amazon.com/Cultural-History-Hinduism-Post-Classical-Age/dp/1...
- "Translating Warhol to India" in Translating Warhol. Ed. Reva Wolf. Bloomsbury Press. Pgs. 197-211. (2024) [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/translating-warhol-9798765110973/]
- "Disruptive Readings: Sanskrit Literary Commentary as Translation" in Science and Society in the Sanskrit World. Eds. Fleming, Knudsen, Misra, Sharma. Brill Press (2023). [https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/61887?.rskey=muACdo&result=2#:~:text=...
- “The Literary Commentary in Sanskrit as Metalinguistic Communication” in Asiatiche Studien – Études Asiatiques, 76.3, 2022. [https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/asia/html#latestIssue]
- "Translating texts, translating readers: could Andy Warhol’s writings be translated into Indian languages?" in Journal of Art Historiography (26: June 2022). ISSN 2042-4752. [https://arthistoriography.wordpress.com/26-jun22/]
- "The Curious Case of Sanskrit Literary Translingualism" in The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translingualism. Eds. Steven Kellman and Natasha Lvovich. Routledge Press (2021) [https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429298745-8/curi...
- "Desire, Perception, and the Poetry of Desire: A Reading of the Vasucaritramu" in Sensitive Reading: The Pleasures of South Asian Literature in Translation. Eds. Yigal Bronner and Charles Hallisey. University of California Press (2021). [https://luminosoa.org/site/books/e/10.1525/luminos.114/]
- "Kāvya’s Repeat Performances: Intersections of Aesthetics, yoga-parikarma-bhāvanā, and the Logic of Medium-Specificity in Daśarūpaka’s Discussion of śāntarasa" in Cracow Indological Studies, Issue XXII (2) (2020). [https://journals.akademicka.pl/cis/article/view/2166]
- “Appropriations and Innovations in Metalinguistic Terminology in an Influential Telugu Grammar Composed in Sanskrit” (2017) in Histoire Épistémologie Langage, Paris: Société d’Histoire et d’Épistémologie des sciences du Langage (International Society for the History and Epistemology of Language Science). [https://www.persee.fr/doc/hel_0750-8069_2017_num_39_2_3612]
- "Mettabhāvanā in Traditional and Popular Buddhist Contexts" (2014) in Asian Philosophy: An International Journal of the Philosophical Traditions of the East. Taylor & Francis. Volume 24, Issue 4. [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09552367.2013.831532]
- "The Sanskrit Poet's 'Voice' in Legend and History," in Sucāruvādadeśika: A Festschrift Honoring Professor Theodore Riccardi, Jr. Eds. Lewis and Owens. Himal Books (2014). [https://himalbooks.com/product/sucaruvadadesika-a-festschrift-honoring-p...
- “Sanskrit Poetry” (2012) in The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 4th Edition. Ed. Greene and Cushman. Princeton University Press, pp. 1250-1255. [https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691154916/the-princeton-encyclopedia-of-poetry-and-poetics]
- “Shared Typologies of Kāmaśāstra, Alaṅkāraśāstra, and Literary Criticism” (2011) in the Journal of Indian Philosophy, Volume 39, No.1. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23884108?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents]
- "Source, Exegesis, and Translation: Sanskrit Commentary and Regional Language Translation in South Asia" (2011) in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 131, no. 2 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23044644?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents]
Courses Taught
COML 7215 Medieval Poetics: Europe and India (co-taught with Rita Copeland)
SAST 004 India's Literature: Love, War, Wisdom and Humor
SAST 150 Introduction To Indian Philosophy
SAST 324 Sanskrit Literature and Poetry
SAST 334 A Survey of Sanskrit, Pakrit,& Classical Tamil Literature in Translation
SAST 631 Sanskrit Epics
SAST 713 Literary Theory, Aesthetics, and Comparative Literature in South Asia
SKRT 460 Sanskrit: 1st Year
SAST 480 Readings in Sanskrit Literature
Affiliations
American Oriental Society, Association for Asian Studies, International Association of Sanskrit Studies, American Institute of Indian Studies, Scindia Oriental Research Institute, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute
