Vasudha Dalmia

Dalmia completed an English Literature B.A. with Honors at Miranda House in Delhi, India and an English Literature M.A. at the University of Cologne in Cologne, Germany. Her Ph.D. in German Literature was completed at Jawaharlal Nehru University in South West Delhi in 1984, and her Habilitation in Modern Indology and Hindi Literature was completed at the University of Heidelberg in 1995. ==Career==

From 1974 to 1979, Dalmia had teaching assignments at the University of Tuebingen, and she was a research fellow at Jawaharlal University from 1979 to 1984. While at Berkeley, she developed the Hindi graduate program. She received a Tagore National Fellowship in the Arts from the Ministry of Culture in India for the Fall 2012 through Spring 2013. In a review for the Journal of the American Oriental Society, Heidi Pauwels wrote Dalmia's contribution to the collection "unravels masterfully the complicated fabric of nineteenth-century "traditionalist" (sanātana) reconstructions of Hinduism" in her analysis of works by Bhāratendu Hariśchandra. Peter Gottschalk wrote in a review for History of Religions, "By focusing on the literary figure of Bharatendu Harischandra, Dalmia presents the variety of social forces contributing to the nationalization of Hindu traditions and the dynamics of the traditions involved in a more nuanced manner than many other scholars." Hindu Pasts Her book Hindu Pasts: Women, Religion, History, published in 2017 by SUNY Press, is a collection of her essays previously published in various publications, with an introduction of the work. In a review for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Emilia Bachrach discusses the attention on gender and the role of women in the collection, and states "It is in fact the author herself that shines through as the book's most notable woman," and also writes, "It is worth noting that throughout the articles - often in her framing of a historical problem - Dalmia critically analyzes (and laments) the rise of Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) in ways that significantly inform her careful unpacking of religious histories." Natalia Guzevataia writes in a review for Politics, Religion & Ideology, "Every essay in the book presents an account from colonial or, more rarely, precolonial reality, based on extensive archival work, followed by a series of questions illuminating the relations between them and the modernity. This is an invitation for the more nuanced and contextualized discussion, as opposed to the immediate call-and-response analysis." Fiction as History Fiction as History: The Novel and the City in Modern North India was published in 2019 by SUNY Press. The book includes an introduction and has two sections of commentary on eight Hindi novels followed by an epilogue, with the first section of commentary covering Pariksha Guru (1882) by Lala Shrinivasdas, Sevasadan (1918) and Karmabhumi (1932) by Premchand, and Jhutha Sach (1958–1960) by Yashpal, and the second section covering Gunahon Ka Devta (1949) by Dharamveer Bharati, Nadi ke Dvip (1948) by Agyeya, Sara Akash (1951) by Rajendra Yadav, and Andhere Band Kamre (1961) by Mohan Rakesh. In a review for The Indian Economic & Social History Review, Prabhat Kumar writes, "Since the story of what the author calls modernisation (i.e., the co-constitution of North Indian cities, Hindu Hindi middle class and the articulation of a range of its cultural experience and emotion—political and sexual, public and intimate, social and individual, pragmatic and romantic and so forth) is best captured in Hindi fiction, she titles her book Fiction as History." In a review for Pacific Affairs, Chakraverti Mahajan notes the epilogue "focuses on connecting the salient dots across the novels, especially focusing on women and their negotiations with structures of power" and states, "Dalmia argues that as the novel in Hindi matures, ways of perceiving women become more complex and nuanced." ==Selected publications==

• Dalmia V. and Heinrich von Stietencron, eds., 1995. Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious Traditions and National Identity. Sage Publications. • Dalmia, V., 1997. The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions: Bhāratendu Hariśchandra and Nineteenth Century Banaras. Oxford University Press. • Dalmia, V., Angelika Malinar, and Martin Christof, eds., 2001. Charisma and Canon: Essays on the Religious History of the Indian Subcontinent, Delhi: Oxford University Press. • Dalmia, V., 2003. Orienting India: European Knowledge Formation in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Delhi: Three Essays. • Dalmia, V., 2008. Poetics, Plays, and Performances: The Politics of Modern Indian Theatre. Oxford University Press. • Dalmia, V. and Sadana, R. eds., 2012. The Cambridge Companion to Modern Indian Culture. Cambridge University Press. • The Music of Solitude, translated into English from the Hindi novel Samay Sargam by Krishna Sobti. Delhi: Harper Perennial, 2013. • Dalmia, V., 2017. Hindu Pasts: Women, Religion, History. State University of New York Press. • Dalmia, V., 2019. Fiction as History: The Novel and the City in Modern North India. SUNY Press. • Martin Fuchs and Vasudha Dalmia, eds., 2019. Religious Interactions in Modern India. Oxford University Press. ==References==