Host Institution USA: French Institute of Pondicherry

Gita Pai

Dr. Gita Pai is a professor of history and the director of the International & Global Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (UWL). Since joining the UWL faculty in 2010 after her MA and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, she has specialized as a cultural historian of early modern to modern South Asia, focusing on south-eastern India (present-day Tamil Nadu). Her research, supported by the Fulbright-Hays Program, the Townsend Center for the Humanities at UC Berkeley, the American Association of University Women, and UWL Faculty Research Grants, culminated in her first book, Architecture of Sovereignty: Stone Bodies, Colonial Gazes, and Living Gods in South India (Cambridge University Press, 2023). This work traces the historical transformations of a prominent temple site in Madurai through the lenses of architecture, sovereignty, visual culture, ritual practice, gender, and cultural tourism.

During her current Fulbright-Nehru tenure, Dr. Pai is advancing her book-in-progress, In Pursuit of Dancing Śiva: The History of India’s Iconic Cultural Treasure. Her research is examining the journey of Śiva Naṭarāja (Lord of Dance), a pinnacle of South Asian sculpture, from being a medieval Tamil devotional object to a centerpiece of contemporary restitution disputes. The project is also analyzing the icon’s evolution into a global symbol of Indian and Hindu identity. Dr. Pai is a past recipient of fellowships from the American Institute of Indian Studies and the Fulbright-Nehru Program.

Janani Mandayam Comar

Ms. Janani Comar is a PhD student at the University of Toronto in the Department of Religion. Her research is at the intersection of religion, caste, and performance. She is particularly interested in the way mythological narratives engage in ethical discourses. Her dissertation looks at hagiographies of mythic figures in colonial South India, and she traces the circulation of their narratives through print and performance. At University of Toronto, she holds the Connaught International Doctoral Scholarship and was a recipient of the MITACS Research Training Award in 2020. She has presented her research at several conferences, including the annual South Asia Conference held at University of Wisconsin Madison.

For the Fulbright-Nehru project, Ms. Comar aims to revisit the history of modern Hinduism to explore how religion and ethics are intimately linked to social status in the colonial period. Working with scholars at the French Institute of Pondicherry, she is focusing on the writings of subaltern Tamil-speaking communities and explore how these groups participated in lively ethical debates through performance. She is also accessing a wide range of archival sources, including from contemporary performers, to trace how narratives about virtuous figures circulated in rural and urban areas. Her findings will be an integral part of her doctoral dissertation on Tamil literature and performance.