Position Title
Graduate Student in Comparative Literature
Associate in Comparative Literature
Education and Degree(s)
MA (Comparative Literature), University of California, Davis
BA (Liberal Arts), Symbiosis International University, Pune, India
Inter-Campus Exchange Program (UC Berkeley), 2018-19
Intermediate Tamil Program, (South Asia Summer Language Institute, UW-Madison), Summer 2019
Advanced Tamil Program (American Institute of Indian Studies), Summer 2020
Research Interest(s)
- Comparative Literary Criticism
- Performance
- Space and Spatial Imagination
- Representation
- Early Modern France
- Early Modern Tamil South India
Teaching Experience
- COM 7 (TA)- Fall 2017, Winter 2018, Fall 2018, Winter 2019
- COM 5 (TA)- Spring 2018
- COM 6 (TA)- Spring 2019, Spring 2020
- CLA 10 (Reader)- Summer 2018
- COM 1 (Associate)- Fall 2019, Winter 2020, Winter 2021, Spring 2021
- COM 2 (Associate)- Summer Session II 2021
Profile
Manasvin Rajagopalan is a PhD Candidate in Comparative Literature, with a Designated Emphasis in the Study of Religion. His research engages the possibilities of world literary criticism, drawing from Tamil poetics to study Early Modern French and Tamil performance genres. Examining the language and deployment of spatial imagination in theatrical and architectural landscapes, he proposes alternative forms of reading and interpretation that emerge from reading French canons through Tamil poetics. In addition, Manas is interested in questions of representation, ornamentation, portraiture and the constitution of reading practices prior to the 19th century.
Languages: Bengali, English, French, Hindi, Tamil
Honors and Awards
Departmental Summer Fellowship (2018, 2019, 2020)
Templeton Summer Graduate Fellowship (2019)
National Humanities Center Graduate Winter Residency (2020)
Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies Consortium Fellowship (2021)
American Institute of Indian Studies Junior Research Fellowship: Alternate (2021)
Publications
Book Reviews:
Rajagopalan, Manasvin. "Review of Freud's Mahabharata." Reading Religion: A Publication of the American Academy of Religion, 5 Sept. 2020, readingreligion.org/books/freuds-mahabharata.
Rajagopalan, Manasvin. "Review of Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court." Reading Religion: A Publication of the American Academy of Religion, 31 Oct. 2020, readingreligion.org/books/culture-encounters.
Other Media:
Bosu, S. and Rajagopalan, M., 2021. Love as Critique. [podcast] High Theory. Available at: <http://hightheory.net/podcast/love-as-critique/> [Accessed 31 March 2021].