Multilingual navigation is an important part of Kutiyattam Sanskrit theater performance, which belonged to the Sanskrit cosmopolis at its inception. As Sanskrit drama was adapted for the Kerala stage, the number of languages used in performance came to include, in various contexts, Sanskrit, Prakrit, Malayalam, Manipravalam, Tamil, and mudras. This paper argues that Kutiyattam’s multilingualism constitutes a form of embodied cosmopolitanism, with each language indexing larger-than-local and/or local worlds. It makes a case for Kutiyattam’s embodied cosmopolitanism via exploring how artists today experience performing in multiple languages, while considering the changing relationships between language and power over time.
Leah LOWTHORP is a cultural anthropologist and folklorist whose work engages art and social change, critical heritage studies, cosmopolitanism(s), post-colonial theory, and the online circulation of biopolitical narratives. She has conducted ethnographic research with the Kutiyattam Sanskrit theater community in Kerala, India, since 2006, and more recently with online communities in an investigation of the digital folklore of human genetic and reproductive technologies. Her work has been funded by the Mellon Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, the American Institute of Indian Studies, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.
She is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon, Anthropology Faculty. She was a College Fellow in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University (2014-16) and a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow at the Center for Genetics and Society (2016-18).
She has authored several articles and co-edited (with Frank J. Korom) South Asian Folklore in Transition: Crafting New Horizons, London: Routledge. Her forthcoming book Deep Cosmopolitanism: Kutiyattam, Dynamic Tradition, and Globalizing Heritage in Kerala, India, Indiana University Press series “Activist Encounters in Folklore and Ethnomusicology” (Fall 2025) is an ethnographic exploration of India's first UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, Kutiyattam Sanskrit theater. The book challenges and broadens existing approaches to cosmopolitanism, heritage, and tradition by questioning Eurocentric genealogies and assumptions about what it means to be cosmopolitan, modern, and traditional in the world today.
5 dicembre 2024, ore 14, Aula D, Ex Vetrerie Sciarra, via dei Volsci 122
Activities of the PhD in Asia and Africa Civilization and Music and Entertainment.
Scientific organization: Carmela Mastrangelo and Vito Di Bernardi