Profile

Shubha Pathak

Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy and Religion

  • Additional Positions at AU

    Undergraduate Religious Studies Advisor
  • Shubha Pathak is a historian of religions who specializes in the mythological literatures of ancient India, Greece, and Rome.  In addition to offering courses on philosophies of art, approaches to studying religion, and Hinduism, she is researching poetic kings in the primary epics of ancient Greece and India; the uses of metaphor and metonymy theories in comparative religious studies; and the construction of poetic creativity in ancient Greece and Rome, ancient and medieval India, and beyond.

  • Degrees

    AM (divinity), PhD (history of religions), University of Chicago Divinity School; PhD (social and behavioral sciences), Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health; AB (religion), Princeton University

  • OFFICE

  • CAS - Philosophy and Religion
  • Battelle Tompkins - 113
  • Tuesdays and Fridays 4-6

  • CONTACT INFO

  • (202) 885-2957 (Office)
  • (202) 885-1094 (Fax)
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  • FOR THE MEDIA

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Teaching

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Research Interests

The philosophical, psychological, and religious aspects of epic poetry and poetic creativity; comparative religious studies; classical literary criticism; and contemporary psychological theories.

Grants and Sponsored Research

2010–11 Faculty Research Award, Office of Academic Affairs, American University.

2008–9 College of Arts and Sciences Mellon Faculty Development Fund Grant, American University. 

Selected Publications

       
  • Divine Yet Human Epics: Reflections of Poetic Rulers from Ancient Greece and India. Washington: CHS, forthcoming.  
  • Figuring Religions: Comparing Ideas, Images, and Activities (edited volume). Albany: SUNY Press, forthcoming.    
  • "The Divine Character of Poetic Creativity in Rajasekhara's Kavyamimamsa." Proceedings of the 13th World Sanskrit Conference.    
  • "Why Do Displaced Kings Become Poets in the Sanskrit Epics?" International Journal of Hindu Studies 10, no. 2 (2006): 127–49.  

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