Paula Richman | |
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Academic background | |
Alma mater | |
Thesis | Religious Rhetoric in Maṇimēkalai (1983) |
Academic advisors | Edward C. Dimock |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Religious studies scholar |
Sub-discipline | |
Institutions |
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Paula Richman is an Emerita William H. Danforth Professor of South Asian Religions at Oberlin College.[1][2] She is an expert in the Tamil language and has edited a series of books about the Ramayana, including Many Ramayanas, Questioning Ramayana, Ramayana Stories in Modern South India and Performing the Ramayana Tradition.[3]
Richman completed her undergraduate degree at Oberlin College in 1974, an MA at Princeton University and the University of Chicago, followed by a PhD at the University of Chicago and a research affiliation with the Tamil Department at the American College in Madurai, India.[4] She began her study of the Ramayana and the Tamil language during her education.[3] She studied Tamil for two years in Coimbatore and Madurai.[5]
Richman was faculty at Swarthmore College, Western Washington University, and Colby College before becoming a member of the faculty at Oberlin College in 1985.[4] In 1997, she was named to the Irvin E. Houck professorship in Humanities for a period of five years.[4] During her career, she traveled to conduct lectures, including to India and Copenhagen.[4][5]
Richman and her co-editor Rustom Bharucha spent eight years developing the book Performing the Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations and Arguments, which includes essays, photographs, interviews, and scripts for theatrical productions, and was published in 2021.[6]