CV | Aparna Dharwadker

Current Appointment

Professor, Department of English and Program in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2014-)

Previous Appointments

Professor, Department of English and Department of Theatre and Drama, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2009-2014)
Associate Professor, Department of English and Department of Theatre and Drama, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2005-2009)
Associate Professor, Department of Theatre and Drama, and Department of the Languages
and Cultures of Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2004-2005)
Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre and Drama, and Department of the Languages and
Cultures of Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2001-2004)
Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Oklahoma (1998-2001)
Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Oklahoma (1991-1998)
Instructor, Department of English, University of Georgia (1989-1991)
Lecturer, Department of English, University of Illinois-Chicago (1987-1989)

Degrees

Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University, 1990
M.A., University of Delhi, 1977
B.A., University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, 1975

Selected Publications

A Poetics of Modernity: Indian Theatre Theory, 1850 to the Present. Oxford University Press, 2019.

The Collected Plays of Girish Karnad. 3 vols. Revised ed. Oxford University Press (2020). Introductions to vols. 1, 2, and 3.

“Cultural Interweaving and Translation: Three Iconic Moments in Indian Theatre, 1859-1979.” In Theatrical Speech Acts: How to Perform Interweaving with Words, ed. Erika Fischer-Lichte et al. (Routledge, 2019).

“The Really Poor Theatre: Postcolonial Economies of Performance.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 31 (2017).

One Day in the Season of Rain (Penguin Modern Classics, 2015). Translated from Hindi with Vinay Dharwadker.

“Modern Indian Theatre.” In The Routledge Handbook of Asian Theatre, ed. Siyuan Liu (2015).

“Modernism, ‘Tradition,’ and History in the Postcolony: Vijay Tendulkar’s Ghashiram kotwal (1972).” Theatre Journal 65 (special issue on “Modernism,” December 2013).

Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India Since 1947 (University of Iowa Press and Oxford University Press, 2005).

“India’s Theatrical Modernity: Re-Theorizing Colonial, Postcolonial, and Diasporic Formations.” Theatre Journal 63 (2011).

“Representing India’s Pasts: Time, Culture, and the Problems of Performance Historiography.” In Representing the Past: Essays in Performance Historiography, ed. Thomas Postlewait and Charlotte Canning. University of Iowa Press (2010).

“Criticism, Critique, and Translation.” Seminar 588 (2008).

“Mohan Rakesh, Modernism, and the Postcolonial Present.” South Central Review 25.1 (2008).

Introductions to The Collected Plays of Girish Karnad, 3 vols. Oxford University Press (2005-17).

“Diaspora and the Theatre of the Nation.” Theatre Research International 28.3 (2003).

“Diaspora, Nation, and the Failure of Home: Two Contemporary Indian Plays.” Theatre Journal 50.1 (1998).

“Language, Identity, and Nation in Postcolonial Indian-English Literature.” (with Vinay Dharwadker). In English Postcoloniality: Literatures from Around the World. Ed. Gita Rajan and Radhika Mohanram. Greenwood Press (1996).

“Historical Fictions and Postcolonial Representation: Reading Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq.” PMLA 110.1 (1995).

“John Gay, Bertolt Brecht, and Postcolonial Antinationalisms.” Modern Drama 38.1 (1995).

“Performance, Meaning, and the Materials of Contemporary Indian Theatre: An Interview with Girish Karnad.” New Theatre Quarterly 44 (1995).

Selected Awards

NEH Fellowship, $60,000 (awarded 2020; fellowship dates 1 Jan.-31 Dec. 2022)

For Contested Modernities and the Modernization of Urban Theatre in India

Winner, Joe A. Calloway Prize for Best Book in Drama and Theatre published in 2018-2019 (2020)

For A Poetics of Modernity: Indian Theatre Theory, 1850 to the Present

Honorable Mention, ATHE 2020 Outstanding Book Award

For A Poetics of Modernity: Indian Theatre Theory, 1850 to the Present

Honorable Mention, Oscar G. Brockett Essay Prize, American Society for Theatre Research (2014).

For “Modernism, ‘Tradition,’ and History in the Postcolony: Vijay Tendulkar’s Ghashiram kotwal (1972).”

Winner, H.I. Romnes Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2007-2012)

Winner, Joe A. Callaway Prize for the Best Book in Drama or Theatre published in 2004-2005 (2006)

For Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India Since 1947

Finalist, George Freedley Memorial Award, Theatre Library Association (2006)

For Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India Since 1947

Professional Distinctions and Service

Aparna Dharwadker has received fellowships from the NEH (1998 and 2020), the American Institute of Indian Studies (1998 and 2007), the International Research Centre, Freie Universität, Berlin (2011 and 2015-16), the Newberry Library, and the Folger Library, among others.

In 2018 she received the two-year Vilas Associates Award from the UW-Madison Graduate School, and from 2007-12 she held the H.I. Romnes Fellowship at UW-Madison for outstanding scholarship in the humanities. She serves, or has served, on the Executive Committee of the American Society for Theatre Research (2018-21), the ASTR Translation Prize Committee (Chair, 2021), the advisory board of Studies in Theatre and Performance (2020- ), the editorial board of Contemporary Literature (2016- ), the Fulbright Screening Committee for India (2006), the Gerald Kahan Prize Committee of the American Society for Theatre Research (2005-08), and the editorial board of Genre (1991-95).

Professor Dharwadker has lectured widely at institutions in North America, Europe, and India, including Harvard University, Washington University, Freie Universität (Berlin), Ludwig Maximilians Universität (Munich), Yale University, University of Toronto, Rutgers University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, and Delhi University.