Harshita Mruthinti KamathVisweswara Rao and Sita Koppaka Associate Professor in Telugu Culture, Literature and HistoryDirector of Undergraduate Studies
Biography
Harshita Mruthinti Kamath (she/her) earned her B.A. from Emory University, Masters in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, and Ph.D. from Emory University. Her research focuses on textual and performance traditions of the South Indian language of Telugu.
Dr. Kamath’s first monograph, Impersonations: The Artifice of Brahmin Masculinity in South Indian Dance (University of California Press, 2019), traces themes of gender, caste, and power in the South Indian dance form of Kuchipudi. Expanding on her work on gender guising and impersonation, Dr. Kamath co-edited the volume, Mimetic Desires: Impersonation and Guising Across South Asia (University of Hawai’i Press, 2022), with Pamela Lothspeich (UNC-Chapel Hill). Dr. Kamath completed the first English-language translation of the sixteenth-century classical Telugu text Pārijātāpaharaṇamu with Velcheru Narayana Rao. The translation, titled Theft of a Tree, is published by the Murty Classical Library of India (Harvard University Press, 2022). Her current monograph, Sanitizing Sex: Erotic and Devotional Entanglements in Telugu South India, traces the relationship between eroticism (śṛṅgāra) and devotion (bhakti) in the short lyrical poems of the Telugu poets Tāḷḷapaka Annamayya (ca. fifteenth century) and Kṣetrayya (ca. seventeenth century).
For more information on Telugu Studies at Emory University, please visit: https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/telugustudies/
Education/Degrees
- Ph.D., West and South Asian Religions, Emory University
- M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School
- B.A., Asian Studies, Emory University
Teaching/Research Areas
- Telugu Literature and Performance
- Critical Hindu Studies
- Indian Dance Studies
- Gender and Sexuality in South Asia
Books Published
- Theft of a Tree. Translation of Pārijātāpaharaṇamu by Nandi Timmana (16th century). Translated with Velcheru Narayana Rao. (Murty Classical Library of India, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2022. English-only edition will be published in 2024.)
- Mimetic Desires: Impersonation and Guising Across South Asia. Co-edited with Pamela Lothspeich. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2022.)
- Impersonations: The Artifice of Brahmin Masculinity in South Indian Dance. (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019.)
