Talk:Prof. Aparna Dharwadker

By Sachi Anjunkar

Aparna Dharwadker is a professor, Department of English and Program in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison as of April 2024. According to her university profile, her research interests include colonial and postcolonial studies, comparative modern drama, modern Indian theatre, contemporary world theatre, postcolonial modernisms, and the global South Asian diaspora.

She has published no books, papers, or research pertaining to Hindus, the Indus Civilization, or caste.

In 2016, she signed a letter addressed to the State Board of Education, California Department of Education, dated May 17, 2016. The letter stated the following:

1. "There is no established connection between Hinduism and the Indus Civilization. The Rg Veda contains numerous mentions of horses and chariots but there is no conclusive material or fossil evidence for either at any Indus valley archeological site."
2. "It is inappropriate to remove mention of the connection of caste to Hinduism."

Publications related to India

Books and Book-Length Works

1. Dharwadker, Aparna, editor. The Collected Plays of Girish Karnad. 3 vols., revised ed., paperback, Oxford University Press, 2020.
2. Dharwadker, Aparna. A Poetics of Modernity: Indian Theatre Theory, 1850 to the Present. Oxford University Press, 2019.
3. Dharwadker, Aparna, and Vinay Dharwadker, translators. One Day in the Season of Rain. Penguin Modern Classics, 2015.
4. Dharwadker, Aparna. Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India Since 1947. University of Iowa Press, 2005. Reprinted, Oxford University Press, 2008.

Articles, Essays, and Book Chapters

1. Dharwadker, Aparna. "Natak." Forthcoming in A Handbook of Performance-Related Terms in Non-European Languages, edited by Erika Fischer-Lichte et al., Routledge, 2022.
2. Dharwadker, Aparna. "Binodini Dasi" and "Amal Allana." Forthcoming in The Routledge Anthology of Women’s Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism, edited by Catherine Burroughs and J. Ellen Gainor, Routledge, 2022.
3. Dharwadker, Aparna. "Cultural Interweaving and Translation: Three Iconic Moments in Indian Theatre, 1859-1979." In Theatrical Speech Acts: Performing Language: Politics, Translations, Embodiments, edited by Erika Fischer-Lichte, Torsten Jost, and Saskya Iris Jain, Routledge, 2020, pp. 91-118.
4. Dharwadker, Aparna. "The Really Poor Theatre: Postcolonial Economies of Performance." Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, vol. 31, no. 2, Spring 2017, pp. 99-124.
5. Dharwadker, Aparna. "Modern Indian Theatre." In The Routledge Handbook of Asian Theatre, edited by Siyuan Liu, Routledge, 2016, pp. 243-267.
6. Dharwadker, Aparna. "Modernism, ‘Tradition,’ and History in the Postcolony: Vijay Tendulkar’s Ghashiram Kotwal." Theatre Journal, vol. 65, Dec. 2013, pp. 467-487.
7. Dharwadker, Aparna. “Arundhati Roy and Indian Fiction in English: A Short Introduction,” “Notes on Characters,” and “Glossary of Terms.” In Teaching The God of Small Things: A Guide for Educators, edited by Aparna Dharwadker et al., Centre for the Humanities, Madison, WI, 2012.
8. Dharwadker, Aparna. “India’s Theatrical Modernity: Re-Theorizing Colonial, Postcolonial, and Diasporic Formations.” Theatre Journal, vol. 63, Oct. 2011, pp. 425–437.
9. Dharwadker, Aparna. “Representing India’s Pasts: Time, Culture, and the Problems of Performance Historiography.” In Representing the Past: Essays in Performance Historiography, edited by Thomas Postlewait and Charlotte Canning, University of Iowa Press, 2010, pp. 168–192.
10. Dharwadker, Aparna. “Criticism, Critique, and Translation.” Seminar, no. 588, Aug. 2008, pp. 52–62.
11. Dharwadker, Aparna. “Mohan Rakesh, Modernism, and the Postcolonial Present.” South Central Review, vol. 25, no. 1, Spring 2008, pp. 136–162.
12. Dharwadker, Aparna. “Women, Authorship, and Contemporary Indian Theatre.” Nukkad Janam Samvad, no. 9.35-36, April-September 2007, pp. 13–15.
13. Dharwadker, Aparna. “Communication.” The Book Review, Feb. 2007, pp. 36–37.
14. Dharwadker, Aparna, and Vinay Dharwadker. Entries on Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry, Satyadev Dubey, Mahesh Elkunchwar, Shyamanand Jalan, Shreeram Lagoo, Vijaya Mehta, Rajinder Nath, Alyque Padamsee, and K. V. Subbanna. In Encyclopedia of Asian Theatre, edited by Sam Leiter et al., Greenwood Press, 2006.
15. Dharwadker, Aparna. “Diaspora and the Theatre of the Nation.” Theatre Research International, vol. 28, no. 3, 2003, pp. 303–325.
16. Dharwadker, Aparna. “Authorship, Metatheatre, and Anti-Theatre in the Restoration.” Theatre Research International, vol. 27, no. 2, 2002, pp. 125–135.
17. Dharwadker, Aparna. “Translation and Translators.” Theatre India, no. 6, 2002, pp. 15–29.
18. Dharwadker, Aparna. “Restoration Drama and Social Class.” In A Companion to Restoration Drama, edited by Susan J. Owen, Blackwell, 2001, pp. 140–160.
19. Dharwadker, Aparna. “The Exercise of Memory and the Diasporization of Anglophone Indian Fiction.” In Arundhati Roy, edited by R. K. Dhawan, Prestige, 1999, pp. 161–165.
20. Dharwadker, Aparna. “Diaspora, Nation, and the Failure of Home: Two Contemporary Indian Plays.” Theatre Journal, vol. 50, no. 1, 1998, pp. 71–94.
21. Dharwadker, Aparna. "The Comedy of Dispossession." Studies in Philology, vol. 95, no. 4, 1998, pp. 411-434.
22. Dharwadker, Aparna. "Nation, Race, and the Ideology of Commerce in Defoe." The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, vol. 39, no. 2, 1998, pp. 63-84.
23. Dharwadker, Aparna, and Vinay Dharwadker. "Response to 'The Canon of Theory' by Katherine Arens and Elizabeth Richmond-Garza." Comparative Literature Studies, vol. 34, no. 4, 1997, pp. 419-422.
24. Dharwadker, Aparna. "Class, Authorship, and the Social Intertexture of Genre in Restoration Theater." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 37, no. 3, 1997, pp. 461-482.
25. Dharwadker, Aparna, and Vinay Dharwadker. "Language, Identity, and Nation in Postcolonial Indian-English Literature." In English Postcoloniality: Literatures from Around the World, edited by Gita Rajan and Radhika Mohanram, Greenwood Press, 1996, pp. 89-106.
26. Dharwadker, Aparna. "Historical Fictions and Postcolonial Representation: Reading Girish Karnad's Tughlaq." PMLA, vol. 110, no. 1, 1995, pp. 43-58.
27. Dharwadker, Aparna. "John Gay, Bertolt Brecht, and Postcolonial Antinationalisms." Modern Drama, vol. 38, no. 1, 1995, pp. 4-21. Awarded annual prize for best essay published in Modern Drama in 1995 by an untenured scholar.
28. Dharwadker, Aparna. "Performance, Meaning, and the Materials of Contemporary Indian Theatre: An Interview with Girish Karnad." New Theatre Quarterly, no. 44, 1995, pp. 355-370.