Overview
Kristina (Krissy) Rogahn is an interdisciplinary scholar of South Asia, specializing in Tamil literature and theory. She researches poetry, poetics, and poetic practice in South Asia and traces their cultural and media histories. In her writing and teaching she aims to highlight the theoretical resources of South Asian literatures and their contributions to humanistic inquiry.
Rogahn’s current research concerns the intersection of literary and historical knowledge formation in the colonial period. Her book in progress, tentatively titled Praising Poets: Genres of Modern Literary History and Devotion to Literature in Tamil situates modern Tamil literary history within a longer lineage of praise and public discourse genres. She is also working on a second project on the Tamil literary association, or sangam, in both literary legend and social history.
She received her PhD from the University of Toronto Department for the Study of Religion and Collaborative Program in Book History and Print Culture. Prior to joining Cornell, she was Lecturer in Tamil at Stanford University. At Cornell, she teaches courses on Indian literature and Hindu religious traditions.
Research Focus
- Tamil literature, literary theory, and intellectual history
- Hinduism and literature
- Translation theory and practice
- Colonialism and missionization in South Asia
- South Asian manuscript and print cultures
- Comparative and world literatures
