Biography:
Sascha Ebeling was trained in South Asian Studies,
Romance Languages and Literatures, and General Linguistics
at the University of Cologne, Germany, and the School of
Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. Before
joining the University of Chicago in 2005, he taught Tamil
literature and South Asian Studies at the University of
Cologne and also worked for the Göttingen Academy of
Sciences as a Tamil manuscriptologist in the project
“Union Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts in German
Collections” (Katalogisierung der orientalischen
Handschriften in Deutschland, KOHD).
His book Colonizing the Realm of Words: The
Transformation of Tamil Literature in Nineteenth-Century
South India will be published by SUNY Press in 2010.
Currently, he is working on two book projects: a
comprehensive social history of modern Tamil literature,
covering the period from 1859 to 2009; and a monograph
with the working title The Imperial Rise of the
Novel, which will address the connections between
Western imperialism, Asian modernities and the global
history of the novel, discussing a wide range of texts
from Europe and Asia (India, China, Vietnam, Cambodia,
Indonesia).
Professor Ebeling is also the recipient of the 2007
Forschungspreis (Research Award) of the
Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft
(German Oriental Society) for his work on
nineteenth-century Tamil literature, and of the 2008
Whiting Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Core
teaching at the University of Chicago.
Research Interests:
Tamil language and literature of all periods, in
particular nineteenth-century literary culture, Tamil
epigraphy, Tamil cinema, South Indian cultures, religion
in Angkorean Cambodia, comparative literary studies.
Regional interests: South India, esp. Tamilnadu and
Kerala, Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia,
Singapore).
Ongoing Research Projects:
- Since 2000, project director of the Digital Archive
of South Indian Inscriptions (DASI), a project to
develop a comprehensive digital corpus of South Indian
inscriptions in collaboration with the Universität zu
Köln, Germany, Uppsala Universitet, Sweden, and the
École Française d'Extrême Orient
(Pondicherry, India). For further details, see the paper
“The Digital Archive of South Indian Inscriptions
(DASI) — A First Report.”
- “Nineteenth-Century Tamil Literature”: A
monograph-length survey of nineteenth-century Tamil
literature will be published in 2010 as Colonizing the
Realm of Words: The Transformation of Tamil Literature in
Nineteenth-Century South India. A lexicon of works
and authors is currently under preparation.
- “The History of Tamil Poetics”: A series of
workshops (organized with Eva Wilden, EFEO, India, and
Thomas Lehmann, Heidelberg University) to examine Tamil
poetological traditions. Project members are currently
compiling critical editions and annotated translations of
the Tamil primary sources. The first publication, “A
Preliminary Annotated Translation of Kalaviyal
alias Iraiyanar Akapporul,” will be published
in 2010.
- “Religions of Indian Origin in Angkor-Period
Cambodia”: This project seeks to re-assess the cultural
history of the transformations that Saivism, Vaishnavism
and Buddhism underwent in medieval Cambodia. See the paper
“Siva, Visnu, Buddha: Religion und Staat im Kambodscha
der Angkor-Periode (9.–14. Jh.)”.
Publications Include:
Book:
- Colonizing the Realm of Words: The Transformation
of Tamil Literature in Nineteenth-Century South India.
Albany: State University of New York Press, to appear in
2010.
Articles:
- (with Jean-Luc Chevillard, Thomas Lehmann, Takanobu
Takahashi and Eva Wilden), “A Preliminary Annotated
Translation of Kalaviyal alias Iraiyanar
Akapporul,” forthcoming 2010. [A new translation
of a text on Tamil poetics prepared jointly by a
research group on Tamil poetic traditions.]
- “Cpap’” in: Kindlers Literatur
Lexikon, 3rd edition, ed. by Heinz Ludwig Arnold,
Stuttgart/Weimar: Verlag J.B. Metzler. forthcoming in
2009. [Survey article in literary encyclopedia on a genre
of Khmer moral treatises (Cambodia), in German.]
- “Tamil or ‘Incomprehensible
Scribble’? The Tamil Philological Commentary
(urai) in the Nineteenth Century”, in:
Wilden, Eva (ed.). Between Preservation and
Recreation. Tamil Traditions of Commentary.
Pondicherry: Institut Français and EFEO. pp. 281-312, in
press.
- “The College of Fort St. George and the Transformation
of Tamil Philology During the Nineteenth Century”, in a
volume on the Madras School of Orientalism edited by
Thomas R. Trautmann, New Delhi: OUP India, in
press.
- “Afterword”, in: Vedanayagam
Pillai, S. 2006. The History of Prathapa Mudaliar. A
Tamil Novel. translated by Meenakshi Tyagarajan. New
Delhi: Katha. pp. 239 - 268.
- “Siva, Visnu, Buddha: Religion und Staat im
Kambodscha der Angkor-Periode (9.–14. Jh.),” in:
Schalk, Peter et al. (eds.). 2005. Im Dickicht der
Gebote. (= Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Historia
religionum 26). Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet. pp.
435–461. [Siva, Visnu, Buddha: Religion and State in
Angkor-Period Cambodia, in German].
- “The Digital Archive of South Indian Inscriptions
(DASI) — A First Report,” in: Jean-Luc Chevillard
und Eva Wilden (eds.). 2004. South-Indian Horizons.
Felicitation Volume for François Gros on the
occasion of his 70th birthday. Pondicherry: Institut
Français and EFEO. pp. 495–503.
- With Thomas Lehmann and Ulrike Niklas (eds.). 2004.
Tamil Studies: Current Trends and Perspectives.
Proceedings of the Panel 36 at the 17th European
Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Heidelberg,
September 9th to 14th, 2002. In: NewKOLAM
9+10, January 2004.
Miscellaneous:
- contributions to Ein kleines Buch voll Liebe.
Liebes-Erklärungen aus aller Welt. Stuttgart: Pons
Verlag, 2009. ISBN: 978-3-12-010014-0 (http://www.pons.de/produkte/3-12-010014-5/):
four love poems translated into German from Czech, Old
Javanese, Raeto-Romance (Romansh), and Tamil.
Recent Talks and Presentations Include:
- 2008 37th Annual Conference on South Asia, University
of Wisconsin - Madison: “Figurations of (Hyper)Real
Masculinities in Tamil Literature and
Cinema”
- 2007 Arbeitstagung des Arbeitskreises Asiatische
Religionsgeschichte (AKAR) [Workshop of the Workgroup on
the History of Asian Religions], University of Munich:
“Another Tomorrow for Nantanar: The Continuation and
Re-Invention of a Medieval South-Indian Untouchable Saint”
[presentation in German; paper to be published in 2010 in
English]
- 2007 Center for South Asian Studies, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor: “The Madras School of Orientalism
Conference”: “The College of Fort St. George and the
Transformation of Tamil Philology During the Nineteenth
Century”
- 2007 University of California, Berkeley, Tamil
Conference: “Pulavars and Potentates in Nineteenth-century
South India: Structures of Literary Patronage at the
Zamindars’ Courts”
Courses taught:
Advanced Tamil, Introduction to the History of Tamil
Literature, Nineteenth-Century Tamil Literature, Readings
in World Literature, Masterpieces of European Poetry,
Reading the Middle Ages: Europe and Asia.
Related Links:
|
