Professor
South Asian Program Coordinator
Contact Information
GWN 233
Office Hours
Tuesdays, Thursdays 12:50-1:20pm
Biography
Ph.D. Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington, 1994
M.A. Eastern Philology and History: Indo-Iranistics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, 1986
B.A. Eastern Philology and History: Indo-Iranistics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, 1983
Curriculum Vitae
(254.19 KB)
Current Research Projects:
- Edition and translation of selected works by Nagridas, alias Savant Singh of Kishangarh (1699-1764) and his concubine Rasik Bihari alias Bani Thani ("the Indian Mona Lisa"). Confluence of classical Hindi devotional and Indo-Persian and Rajasthani court idiom (sponsored by a NEH and Guggenheim Fellowship).
- Revisiting the birth of Urdu: the reception of "the father of Urdu," Vali, in eighteenth-century Delhi salons, an interdisciplinary project with Purnima Dhavan (History, UW) (sponsored by an NEH Collaborative grant).
- An edited volume on Vernaculars, Memory construction and Emotion: Giant Jinas and Warrior Epics in Gwalior together with Eva De Clercq (Gent University, Belgium).
Awards and Honors
Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (2011–2012)
National Endowment for the Humanities 9-month Fellowship for The Voice of India’s Mona Lisa (2020)
National Endowment for the Humanities collaborative grant with Purnima Dhavan for Urdu’s Origins Revisited: Vali Dakhani’s Reception in Multilingual South Asia (2023–24)
Research
Selected Research
- Pauwels, Heidi. 2018d Sītā. In Mandakranta Bose, ed. The Oxford History of Hinduism: The Goddess. 147–172. Oxford: OUP.
- Pauwels, H. 2023b. Mīrā’s Iconography: From Miniature to Movie. In: Karen Pechilis and Amy-Ruth Holt, eds. Devotional Visualities: Seeing Bhakti in Indic Material Cultures. 285–309. London: Bloomsbury Academic 2023
- Pauwels, H. (with Purnima Dhavan). 2023. Crafting Literary Urdu: Mirzā Ḥātim’s engagement with Valī Dakhanī. Modern Asian Studies 57.3: 711–39 (Cambridge)
- Pauwels, Heidi. 2023. The Voice of the Indian Mona Lisa: Gender and Culture in Rajasthan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Pauwels, Heidi. 2022a.Canonization of Bhakti Gurus: A Missing Link between Jai Singh II and Harishcandra. In: Istvan Keul and Srilata Raman, eds. Religious Authority in South Asia: Generating the Guru. 72–83. Routledge South Asian Religious Series. London: Routledge.
- Pauwels, Heidi. 2022b. Un Mahābhārata vernaculaire prémoderne: Performances et émotions à Gwalior au xve siècle. In : Anne Castaing and Ingrid Le Gargasson, eds. Performances de la littérature en Asie du Sud : Réciter, interpréter, jouer. Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universitaires de Provence.
- Pauwels, Heidi. 2021b. The Vernacular Pulse of Sanskrit: Metre and More in Songs of the Gītagovinda and Bhāgavata Purāna. The Journal of Hindu Studies 14: 294–319.
- Pauwels, Heidi. 2021a. The Power Politics of Desire and Revenge: An Old Hindi Kīcaka-vadha Performance at the Tomar Court of Gwalior. In: Nell Hawley and Sohini Pillai, eds. Many Mahābhāratas. 237–56. Albany, NY: SUNY. Download PDF
- Pauwels, Heidi. 2021c. Cultivating Emotion and the Rise of the Vernacular: The Role of Affect in ‘Early Hindi-Urdu’ Song. South Asian History and Culture 21.2: 146–65. DOI: 10.1080/19472498.2021.1878787
- Pauwels, Heidi. 2020e. Reviewing the Idea of Debate within the Intellectual History of South Asia: Early Modern Vernacular Inter- and Intra-Religious Dialogues. Zeitschrift fūr Indologie und Südasienstudien 37: 96–123
- Pauwels, Heidi, and Eva De Clercq, eds. 2020. Vernacular performance, memory construction, and emotions: warrior epics, Akhārās, and giant Jinas in Gwalior, Special issue of South Asian History and Culture. Introduction DOI: 10.1080/19472498.2020.1719318
- Pauwels, H. 2019b. Power Permutations in Old Hindi Manuscripts: Who asks the questions and who gives the answers, Rāmānanda or Kabīr? Manuscript Studies 4.1 (Spring): 42–71.
- Pauwels, Heidi, and Anne Murphy, eds. 2018. From Outside the Persianate Center: Vernacular Views of Aurangzeb/“Alamgir.” Special Issue of Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 28.3.
- Pauwels, Heidi R.M. 2017. Mobilizing Krishna’s World: The Writings of Prince Sāvant Singh of Kishangarh. Seattle, University of Washington Press; Hyderabad, Orient Blackswann (262 pages) ISBN 978-0-295-74223-6 Download PDF
- Pauwels, H. 2016. “Rewriting the Sītā-Rāma Romance: Nāgarīdās’ Rām-Carit-Mālā (1749).” In The Journal of Hindu Studies 9.3: 251–272
- Pauwels, Heidi R.M. 2015. Cultural Exchange in Eighteenth-Century India: Poetry and Paintings from Kishangarh. Studies in Asian Art and Culture 4. Berlin: E.B. Verlag. (301 pages) ISBN 978-3-86893-184-6 Download PDF
- Pauwels, Heidi. "Cosmopolitan Soirées in Eighteenth-Century North India: Reception of early Urdu Poetry in Kishangarh." South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (Centre d’Études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du sud). 2014b.
- Pauwels, Heidi. "When a Sufi tells about Krishna’s Doom:The Case of Kanhavat." The Journal of Hindu Studies (2013;6): 21–36.
- Heidi Pauwels, Monika Horstmann, eds. Indian Satire in the Period of First Modernity. Khoj 9. Harrassowitz Verlag: 2012.
- Heidi Pauwels, Purmina Dhavan. Welcoming Vali: An Exploration of the Literary Legacy of Vali Dakhani. 2011.
- Heidi Pauwels. "A Tale of Two Temples: Mathura’s Kesavadeva and Orchha’s Caturbhujadeva." South Asian History and Culture 2.2 (2011): 278-299.
- Heidi Pauwels. "Rathauri Mira." International Journal of Hindu Studies 14.2-3 (2011): 177-200.
- Heidi Pauwels. "The Woman Waylaid at the Well:' A Folk Theme Appropriated in Myth and Movies." Asian Ethnology 69.1 (2010): 1-33.
- Heidi Pauwels. "The Saint, the Warlord, and the Emperor: Discourses of Braj Bhakti and Bundela Loyalty." Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 52 (2009): 187-228.
- Heidi Pauwels. Patronage and Popularisation, Pilgrimage and Procession: Channels of Transcultural Translation and Transmission in Modern and Pre-Modern South Asia. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009.
- Heidi Pauwels. The Goddess as Role Model: Sita and Radha in Scripture and on Screen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
- Heidi Pauwels. "Stealing a Willing Bride: Women’s agency in the myth of Rukmini's Elopement." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 17.4 (2007): 407-441.
- Heidi Pauwels. Indian Literature and Popular Cinema: Recasting Classics. London and New York: Routledge, 2007.
- Heidi Pauwels. In Praise of Holy Men: Hagiographic poems by and about Hariram Vyas. Groningen Oriental Studies 18. Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 2002.
- Pauwels 2024. "A Sixteenth-Century Testimony on Vṛndāvana’s First-Generation Pioneers." In: Kiyokazu Okita and Rembert, eds. The Building of Vṛndāvana: Architecture, Theology, and Practice in an Early Modern Pilgrimage Town. 23–43. Brill's Indological Library 57. Leiden: Brill.
- Pauwels, H. 2019b. Power Permutations in Old Hindi Manuscripts: Who asks the questions and who gives the answers, Rāmānanda or Kabīr? Manuscript Studies 4.1 (Spring): 42–71.
- 2021b. The Vernacular Pulse of Sanskrit: Metre and More in Songs of the Gītagovinda and Bhāgavata Purāna. The Journal of Hindu Studies 14: 294–319.
- Michael C. Shapiro, Heidi Pauwels, Carol Salomon, Alan W. Entwistle. Studies in Early Modern Indo-Aryan Languages, Literature and Culture. South Asia Books.
- Heidi Pauwels, Harirama Vyas. Krsna's Round Dance Reconsidered: Hariram Vyas's Hindi Ras-Pancadhyayi. Curzon Press.
Research Advised
- Diamond, Christopher. expected 2019. “Poet, Scholar, Saint: Competing Vernacular Memories of Vidyāpati (16th-19th cent. CE)”
- Castro, Genoveva. Wājid 'Alī Shāh Plays Krishna's Stolen Flute : The Multiplicity of Voices in the King of Awadh's Dramatic Work. Seattle]: University of Washington, 2016.
- Diamond, Christopher Lawrence. City of the Turks : Urban Encounters in Vidyāpati's Kīrttilatā. Seattle: University of Washington, 2015
- Langerfeld, Joseph. Spiritual Health in the Bhakti Tradition of Śrī Harirāyajī’s Śiksāpatra, 2013, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.
- Ritter, Valerie. Useful Absences and the Nature of the Modern : Ayodhyāsiṁh Upādhyāy "Hariaudh" (1865-1947), His Priyapravās (1914), and Hindi Poetry. University of Washington, 2001.
Courses Taught
Winter 2025
Autumn 2024
Spring 2024
Winter 2024
Winter 2023
Autumn 2022
Spring 2022
Winter 2022
Additional Courses
- Winter 2023 Relig 456A
- Spring 2022 CLIT 322A
- Winter 2022 Relig 356A Gender Hindu Goddess and CLIT 322A
- Spring 2021Relig 352A
- Spring 2018 - RELIG 352A: Introduction to Hinduism
Resources & Related Links
Affiliations
Home Department
Related Departments
Professional Affiliations
Association of Asian Studies, American Academy of Religion, American Oriental Society, European Association for South Asian Studies
Related News
Related News
- Missing Women Authors: Songs from the Kishangarh Zenana (October 31, 2023)
- Asian L&L Celebrates Cherry Blossoms with Poetry (April 11, 2023)
- NEH Collaborative Grant for Pauwels, Dhavan, and Ahmad (December 5, 2022)
- Professor Heidi Pauwels publishes Mobilizing Krishna's World (December 15, 2017)
- Memory Construction and Emotion in India, Past and Present (November 12, 2017)
- Departmental Faculty Shine Brightly in UW's Interdisciplinary Honors Program (June 7, 2016)
- LACMA Exhibit Features Translation from Prof. Pauwels’ New Book (May 2, 2016)
- New book by Professor Heidi Rika Maria Pauwels (September 8, 2015)
- Autumn 2015 Course Spotlight - LOVE AND WAR (November 22, 2013)
- Faculty News 2010 (June 1, 2010)
- Faculty News 2009 (June 1, 2009)