Audrey Truschke

Truschke earned her bachelor's degree in religious studies from the University of Chicago in 2004. She earned her MA from Columbia University in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies in 2007 before going on to receive a MPhil in the same discipline in 2008. She received her PhD from Columbia University in 2012, and was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Cambridge (2012–2013) and Stanford University (2013–2016). In 2015, Truschke joined Rutgers University as an assistant professor of South Asian history and in 2023, she was promoted to full professorship. == Publications and reception ==

Monographs Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court In 2016, Truschke's Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court, was published by Columbia University Press. It dwelt upon the literary, social, and political roles of Sanskrit in the Mughal courts from 1560 to 1650, and was reviewed in multiple journals. Edmond Smith of the University of Kent, writing for Reviews in History, found the work to be "evocative, [and] expertly researched", where Truschke used her "exceptional linguistic talents" to pose and answer provoking questions about the Mughal Empire while inspiring other scholars to re-examine their approaches to studying religions. ''Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King'' In 2017, Truschke published ''Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King about the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, with Stanford University Press. Truschke, in her reading of sources, suggests that Aurangzeb was not the anti-Hindu tyrant he has been made out to be in popular scholarship; there was no "systematic" attack on Hindus and his sporadic destruction of temples or imposition of jizya'' must be interpreted from within a political and economical milieu. Munis D. Faruqui, a historian of Mughal India, found the book to be an excellent work aimed at non-specialists, and praised Truschke's willingness to tackle the topic despite being aware about the inevitability of "vicious personal attacks from mostly nonacademic critics". However, Faruqui cautioned that the book "[did] not fill unexplored gaps in the historiography." The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule Truschke's third monograph, The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule, was published in January 2021 by Columbia University Press. India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent Truschke's fourth monograph, India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent, was published in June 2025 by Princeton University Press. Edited volumes In May 2021, Truschke co-edited "The Ramayana of Hamida Banu Begum, Queen Mother of Mughal India" which was published by Silvana Editoriale and Museum of Islamic Art, Doha. == Honors ==

In 2017, Truschke was awarded the John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History by the American Historical Association for Culture of Encounters being the "most distinguished work of scholarship on South Asian history, [published in 2016]". She received the Rutgers Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence in 2020. == Social media activity ==

Translation controversy In one of her tweets in 2018, Truschke, referring to an episode in the Ramayana, said that Sita had admonished Rama as a "misogynist pig"; she cited a critical translation of the Valmiki Ramayana by Robert P. Goldman in support. Goldman however denied that he ever used such language and deemed her choice of words to be "highly inappropriate". Truschke responded by stating that such disagreements are routine aspects of scholarly discourse and she had only offered a "loose translation" using contemporary language. According to Truschke, Goldman himself had used words like "pimp" in describing Sita's criticism of Rama and further, she was not endorsing Sita's criticism. Srinivas Reddy, a professor of religious studies at Brown University, found Truschke's choice of words to lie in the extreme and missing contextual nuances; however, he supported her right to critically interpret epic characters and found subsequent attacks on her by the Hindu right to be misogynistic in essence, and deplorable. Highlighting how the Ramayana was not a dead text but a way of life in India, he urged Truschke to adopt a less polarizing voice in her analyses and respect the text, if not revere. Writer Purushottam Agrawal found the tweet to be inflammatory, disrespectful and poor; it reduced the layered and complex character of Rama to a "caricature in a contemporary American comic strip," noting that "'Prakrita' [is] a common word, which essentially means 'ordinary' or 'uncivilised', or 'raw' as opposed to refined." Cultural critic Pushpesh Pant found the translation to be poor, as well. == Targeting by the Hindu right ==

Truschke has been a prominent critic of Hindutva and its exclusionary ideology. Due to her historical works and her choice of language, she has become a target of the Hindu right In 2021, Truschke, along with a group of other scholars, formed a collective to combat increasing harassment of South Asian scholars by people affiliated with Hindutva. although she is "not Jewish"; her family name is of Polish origin. Aurangzeb After publishing her monograph on Aurangzeb, Truschke was accused of allegedly whitewashing the figure and was trolled by the Hindu right. Wendy Doniger noted these to be ad-hominem attacks infused with Islamophobia and misogyny. Truschke was represented by Cornell Law School's First Amendment Clinic and Davis Wright Tremaine. A year and a half later, Judge Amit Mehta dismissed the suit since HAF not only failed to establish any cause of action — even assuming that their allegations were factually accurate — but also failed to evidence that the court had any personal jurisdiction over the defendants. A diverse group of intellectuals and academics—Akeel Bilgrami, Amitav Ghosh, Anita Desai, Cornel West, Martha Nussbaum, Nandini Sundar, Noam Chomsky, Romila Thapar, Sudipta Kaviraj, Sheldon Pollock, and Wendy Doniger among others—have condemned HAF's tactics as a strategic lawsuit against public participation to silence critics and push forward Hindutva. == Personal life ==

Truschke has three children. ==Notes==