Dr. Pamela Lothspeich

Office Hours: On leave
Zoom Link

Research

My research centers on adaptations of the Indian epics in Hindi literature, theatre, and film. I am especially interested in how the Mahabharat and the Ramayan have been reimagined, rewritten, and performed over the centuries to reflect new ideologies and aesthetics. My first book, Epic Nation, Reimagining the Mahabharata in the Age of Empire (OUP 2009), concerns of the mythological genre in Hindi literature, showing how it was an effective vehicle to covertly express anticolonial nationalism, even as it helped establish an idiom for modern Hindi literature. My current research projects concern the Indian theatres of Ramlila, which enacts the story of the Ramayan in an annual fall festival, and Raslila, which tells many episodes of Krishna’s youth through music and dance.

Publications

Books

The Epic World. Edited volume. Routledge Worlds Series. Routledge. 2024.

Mimetic Desires: Impersonation and Guising across South Asia. Co-edited volume with Harshita Mruthinti Kamath. Music and Performing Arts of Asia and the Pacific Series. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 2022.

Epic Nation: Reimagining the Mahabharata in the Age of Empire.  New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Guest editor of special issue

The Field of Ramlila. Asian Theatre Journal 37, no. 1 (2020).

Selected articles (since 2013)

“Introduction.” In The Epic World, edited by Pamela Lothspeich. Routledge Worlds Series. London: Routledge, 2024, 1-12.

“Pandit Radheshyam’s Ramayan: A Sourcebook for Ramlila Scripts in the Orbit of Bareilly.” Journal of Hindu Studies 16:3 (2023): 270-93.

“Introduction,” co-authored with Harshita Mruthinti Kamath. In Mimetic Desires: Impersonation and Guising Across South Asia, edited by Harshita Mruthinti Kamath and Pamela Lothspeich. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2022, 1-23.

“Divine Embodiment in the Theatre of Ramlila.” In Mimetic Desires: Impersonation and Guising Across South Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2022, 236-56.

“Draupadī, Yājñasenī, Pāñcālī, Kṛṣṇā: Representations of an Epic Heroine in Three Novels.” In Many Mahābhāratas, edited by Nell Shapiro Hawley and Sohini Sarah Pillai. Albany: SUNY Press, 2021, 325-42.

“Introduction” and “The Story of Ram in Ramlila.” The Field of Ramlila (special issue). Asian Theatre Journal 37:1 (2020): 3-37.

“Kumaoni Ramlila, A Conversation with Himanshu Joshi.” The Field of Ramlila (special issue). Asian Theatre Journal 37:1 (2020): 142-58.

“Ras and Affect in Ramlila (and the Radheshyam Ramayan).” Asian Theatre Journal 36:1 (2019):     1-27.

“Lovely Fairies and Crafty Ghosts in Indian Tales.” In The Fairy Tale World, edited by Andrew Teverson, Routledge Worlds Series. New York: Routledge, 2019, 309-23.

“Chasing the Parsi Theatre in Bareilly.” TDR: The Drama Review T226, 59:2 (2015): 9-45.

“The Radheshyam Ramayana and the Sanskritization of Khari Boli Hindi.” Modern Asian Studies 47:5 (2013): 1644-77.

Bibliography

“The Mahābhārata in Hindu Tradition,” Oxford Bibliographies in Hinduism, edited by Tracy Coleman, http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/ revised ed. (August 2018).