Perundevi Srinivasan

My Siena Experience

My Teaching Philosophy

I believe teaching is a dialogic exercise in which students and the instructor actively learn together. I foster a classroom culture that encourages students to fully participate in classroom discussions. I encourage students to connect their classroom learning to their real-life experiences. I also ask them to critically engage with their learning so that they can examine the theoretical and methodological validity of the findings.

What I Love About Siena

(a) Fun and respectful students, and
(b) A collegial Religious Studies Department

My Favorite Courses to Teach

Goddesses in India and Beyond, World Religions, and all Honors courses.

My Professional Experience

Articles & Book Reviews

• Sa. Kandasamy: A Pioneer of Minimalist Aesthetics in Modern Tamil Fiction
  Indian Literature
  2020
• Sprouts of the Body, Sprouts of the Field: Identification of the Goddess with Poxes in South India
  Religions, vol. 10
  2019
• Pariyerum Perumal: Anmai Colladalkalum Atikka Catiyudanana Uraiyadalkalum
  Kalachuvadu
  2018
• Pirapulinkalilai Enum Akkumatevi Carittira Natakam: Caranarkalum Camanarkalum
  Kutu, vol. 3
  2018
• Nationalist Fabric, Gendering Threads: Notes on Bharati's Draupadi,
  International Journal of Hindu Studies, vol. 18
  2014
• The Ascetic Goddess Who is Half Woman: Female Authority in the Discourses of Mariyamman's Tapas
  Nidan: International Journal for the Study of Hinduism, vol. 24
  December, 2012
• Book Review essay. Fierce Gods: Inequality, Ritual and the Politics of Dignity in South, by Diane P. Mines.
  History of Religions, vol. 47
  2007
• Book Review essay. Stories About Posts: Vedic Variations Around the Hindu Goddess, by Madeleine Biardeau.
  Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 78
  2005

Awards & Distinctions

• COTFD: International Travel Grant
  Category: Research
  Siena College, 2021
• Shortlisted for the literary award (Tamil)
  Category: Other
  Sahitya Akademi, 2021
• https://tamilliterarygarden.com/files/2020_awards.jpg
  Category: Other
  Tamil Literary Garden, Canada, 2020
•  Grant for doing summer research in libraries and archives in India
  Category: Research
  Siena College, 2015
• Research Grant for archival research at the British Library, London
  Category: Research
  L & L Dallapiccola Foundation, Scotland, 2014
• 
  
  Category: Research
  Siena College, 2012
• Offer Declined
  
  Category: Research
  Harvard University, 2011
• Short-term fieldwork during Summer to gather songs on the goddess Mariyamman in Tamilnadu, India.
  
  Category: Research
  L & L Dallapiccola Foundation, Scotland, 2010
• 
  
  Category: Research
  The George Washington University, 2009

• Short-term fieldwork to gather “origin” narratives of utukkai (hour-glass shaped music instrument) in Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh, India

  
  Category: Research
  L & L Dallapiccola Foundation, Scotland, 2009
• Fellowship received during the AY 2007-2008
  
  Category: Teaching
  The George Washington University, 2007
• 
  
  Category: Other
  19th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, University of Leiden, Netherlands, 2006
• For dissertation research in India during 2005-2006
  
  Category: Research
  American Institute of Indian Studies, 2005
• Summer research
  
  Category: Research
  The George Washington University (Department of Anthropology), 2004
• Field research on male actors performing female roles in ritual theatre in Tamilnadu, India,  Summer 2003
  
  Category: Research
  Voicing Silence, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, India, 2003

Books & Book Chapters

• Stories of the Flesh: Colonial and Ethnographic Discourses on the Goddess Mariyamman (in progress)
  
  2024
• Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism
  
  2023
• The Cults of Draupadi and Duryodhana in South India: The Mahabharata in an Antitriumphalist Mode (in progress)
  
  2023
• The Radiance of Tamil: Ten Years of the Chicago Tamil Forum
  
  2023
• Mucce Narumanamanal (When Breath Itself is Fragrant)
  Kalachuvadu
  2022
• Tamil Book Culture: Essays in Memory of CreA Ramakrishnan
  Chennai: CreA
  2021
• Tecam-Caati-Camayam: Atikarattaip Purintukollal (Nation-Caste-Religion: Understanding the Power)
  Kalachuvadu
  2021
• Asokamittiranai Vasittal (Trans. Reading Asokamittiran: Essays in Literary Criticism)
  Kalachuvadu
  2019
• Utal-Pal-Porul: Paliyal Vanmurai Enum Camukac Ceyarpatu (Body-Sex-Matter: Sexual Violence as a Social Practice)
  Kalachuvadu
  2019
• Inventing and Reinventing the Goddess: Contemporary Iterations of Hindu Deities on the Move.
  Lexington Books.
  2014
• Religion in Literature and Film in South Asia
  Palgrave Macmillan
  2010
• Reorienting Orientalism.
  Sage
  2006

Presentations

• Transformation of the Kaurava Queen Peruntiruvāḷ into the Goddess: Periyāṇṭacchi Worship in Tamilnadu
  2023
  American Academy of Religion: Seminar on the Mahabharata and Classical Hinduism, San Antonio, Texas
• Tracing Bhanumati through the Tamil Folklore and Field
  2020
  European Conference on South Asian Studies, Vienna, Austria
• Discourses of Masculinity and Dialogue with Hegemonic Caste Groups: Dalit Politics in Pariyerum Perumal
  October, 2019
  Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, United States of America
• 'You Should not Cry': Vaishnava Discourses on Death and Mourning
  March, 2018
  The Senses and Spaces of Death, Dying and Remembering: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Leeds, United Kingdom
• The Goddess as the Source of the Smallpox Vaccine
  February, 2018
  Workshop on "History of Science, Technology and Environment." Department of History, Periyar University, Salem, India
• The Home and the Nation in Tamil Amman Films
  July, 2016
  "To Take Place: Culture, Religion and Home-Making in and Beyond South Asia" Conference, Chennai, India
• Love Meets Death: "Honour," Caste and the Female Subject
  May, 2016
  Workshop, The Chicago Tamil Forum, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
• Disrobing Draupadi: Gender in Text, Theatre, and Life
  November, 2015
  American Academy of Religion, Atlanta, Georgia
• Construction of Home, Outer Space and Female Identity: Women Writing in Diaspora
  2014
  Tamil Beyond its Homeland, A conference organized by The Centre for Tamil Culture, Coimbatore, India, Coimbatore, India
• Religious Legends and Reality: Subject-formation in Tamil Films
  2014
  One Hundred Years of Tamil Cinema. A conference organized by Visual Communication Department, Loyola College, Chennai, India and Katchipizhai, a film magazine, Chennai, India
• Rethinking 'Possession' in the Context of Pox-affliction.
  2014
  Sacred Geographies, Religious Cultures and Popular Practices in History and Imagination. Organized by Government Arts College, Tiruvannamalai, India
• Warring Goddess, Devoted Daughters: Female Subjectivities and Tamil Films.
  2014
  Moving On: South Asian Screen Cultures in a Broader Frame. University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom
• Deity-Making and Territory-Making: Body, Poxes and Healing in South India
  November, 2012
  American Academy of Religion, Chicago, Illinois
• Re-encoding Nostalgia and Encountering the Present: Discourses of Land and Time in 'Ayirathil Oruvan'
  May, 2012
  Tamil Studies Conference, Toronto, Canada
• The Broken Pot and the Beheaded Body: Chastity as Heteronormative Power
  March, 2011
  Association for Asian Studies and International Convention of Asia Scholars, Honolulu, Hawaii
• Body as Sacred Space: When the Goddess Arrives as Poxes
  November, 2009
  American Academy of Religion, Montreal, Canada
• The Goddess as an Ascetic: Articulation of Tapas in Tamil Puranic and Folk Narratives
  November, 2009
  Dharma Association of North America Conference, Montreal, Canada
• Ammai (affliction of poxes) as the Possession of the Goddess
  June, 2008
  20th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Manchester, United Kingdom
• 'I Gave Those Pills Only after Calling them Margosa Leaves': Healing Poxes and Measles in South India
  October, 2007
  36th Annual Conference on South Asia at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin
• Enacting the Feminine: The Subject-Effect and Audiences
  October, 2007
  Feminist Pre-conference on South Asian Feminisms, 36th Annual Conference on South Asia at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin
• Panchali Capatattil Pen Adaiyalam
  December, 2006
  International Conference on Tamil Literature: Bharathi, Pudumaippittan and Sundararamaswamy, Coimbatore, India
• Myth as a Trope of Contemporary Social Dynamics: Notes on the Goddess and Castes
  October, 2006
  35th Annual Conference on South Asia at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin
• The Creative Modern and the Myths of the Goddess of Poxes
  June, 2006
  19th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Leiden, Netherlands
• The 'Modern' as the Ritual Context
  February, 2005
  Anthropology Student Research Conference at The George Washington University, Washington, District of Columbia
• Pen Vesham: Performing Body in Tamil Context
  October, 2004
  33rd Annual Conference on South Asia at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin
• Is Draupadi He or She? Violence in Text, Theatre and Life
  May, 2004
  "Identity, Group Psychology and Violence." Washington School of Psychiatry, Association for Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society and George Washington University, Washington, District of Columbia
• Agency and Orientalist Discourse in the Colonial Tamil Context
  2004
  Rereading Orientalism, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, India