Shubha Pathak Associate Professor Philosophy & Religion
- 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
- Bio
- Shubha Pathak is a historian of religions who interprets myths from India, Greece, and Rome. In her research and teaching, she compares Greco-Roman and Indian epics in their original and later literary forms to illuminate their paradigmatic pantheons and their authors’ creative understandings of their places in their universes. Her monograph, Divine Yet Human Epics: Reflections of Poetic Rulers from Ancient Greece and India (Center for Hellenic Studies, Trustees for Harvard University, 2014), shows how divinity-favored and -favoring bardic kings in the primary Greek and Sanskrit epics articulate and address their respective audiences' existential needs. Her edited volume, Figuring Religions: Comparing Ideas, Images, and Activities (State University of New York Press, 2013), demonstrates the methodological advances made by applying metaphor and metonymy theories in comparative religious studies.
- See Also
- Shubha Pathak's ORCID record
- For the Media
- To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.
Partnerships & Affiliations
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Society for Classical Studies
Chair, Committee on Public Information and Media Relations, Communications and Outreach Division; Past Member, Committee on the Classical Tradition and Reception, Outreach Division -
American Oriental Society
Member -
American Academy of Religion
Member, Steering Committee, Mahābhārata and Classical Hinduism Seminar; Past Chair (with Professor Patton Burchett, College of William & Mary, as Chair), Hinduism Unit
Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities
Selected Publications
- Divine Yet Human Epics: Reflections of Poetic Rulers from Ancient Greece and India. Washington: Center for Hellenic Studies, Trustees for Harvard University; Cambridge: distributed by Harvard University Press, 2014.
- Figuring Religions: Comparing Ideas, Images, and Activities (edited volume). Albany: State University of New York Press, 2013.
- "Shubha Pathak on 'What does philosophy of religion offer to the modern university?'" Philosophy of Religion: big question philosophy for scholars and students (Web log). March 15, 2016.
- "Why People Need Epics: Terming and Learning from the Divine Yet Human." Classics@ 12 (2015).
- "Why Do Displaced Kings Become Poets in the Sanskrit Epics? Modeling Dharma in the Affirmative Rāmāyaṇa and the Interrogative Mahābhārata." International Journal of Hindu Studies 10, no. 2 (2006): 127–49.
Research Interests
The philosophical, psychological, and religious aspects of epic poetry and literary creativity; comparative philosophy and comparative religion; literary criticism; and contemporary psychological theories.
Grants and Sponsored Research
2016–17 College of Arts and Sciences Mellon Faculty Development Fund Grant, American University.
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.