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Vivek V. Narayan

Assistant Professor of Performance Studies, Ashoka University

Ph.D. Stanford University

Vivek V. Narayan is Assistant Professor of Performance Studies at Ashoka University. 

He graduated from Stanford University with a PhD in Theater and Performance Studies and a PhD Minor in Anthropology, prior to which he completed MA Theatre (Directing) from Royal Holloway, University of London, and BA English Literature from St. Xavier’s College, University of Mumbai. Before joining Ashoka, he taught in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

Professor Narayan is a scholar, performance-maker, and writer, whose research is on caste and anti-caste politics in south India. His writing has appeared in J-CASTE, The Caravan, The Hindu, AZURE, and The High Window, among others, while his plays have been staged at various venues in India, the UK, and the US. 

He is currently at work on his monograph, Stolen Fire: Caste Scripts and Anti-Caste Politics in South India, 1893-2018, which views the Dalit movement in contemporary Kerala as well as the long history of anti-caste struggle in colonial-era Travancore through the lens of performance. 

His research interests focus on Performance Studies, Modern Drama and Theatre, Postcolonial Theatres, Postcolonial/Decolonial theories, Dalit Studies, Anthropology of Caste, Critical Race Studies, Transnational Solidarities, Care Ethics, Performance-Making: solo and ensemble, directing for the stage, playwriting, and Modern Indian Theatre.

  • Mirrors of the Soul: Performative egalitarianisms and genealogies of the human in colonial-era Travancore, 1854-1927” in CASTE: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 125-54 (Feb 2020)

  • “Caste as Performance: Ayyankali and the caste scripts of colonial Kerala” in Theatre Survey (in final round review)

  • The Möbius Strip of Spirit and Matter: Abolition, slave agency, and missionary modernity in colonial-era Travancore, c. 1822 – c. 1922” in as-yet-untitled book on sovereignties in the Global South, eds. Filippo Osella, J. Devika, V. J. Varghese, Santhosh R. (in preparation)

  • “Means of Production: Sunil Shanbag’s life in the theatre” (The Caravan, 2014)

  • “Review: The Caste of Merit” in CASTE: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion (forthcoming)

  • “Review: Rabindranath Tagore’s Drama in the Perspective of Indian Theatre” in Modern Drama (in preparation)

  • Introduction to Drama and Theatre

  • Postcolonial Literatures

  • Introduction to Performance Studies

  • Transnational Solidarities

  • Bluestone Rising Scholar Prize, 2019

  • Charles R. Lyons Memorial Prize for Outstanding Dissertation, 2019

  • Charles Wallace India Trust long-term award, 2008-9

  • Shortlisted for The Hindu MetroPlus Playwright Award, 2008

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