PhD, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2023
MPhil, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2017
MA, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2012
Research Interests
Gender and Religion, Cultural Anthropology of Goddesses in South Asia, Ritual Performance, Textual Traditions of Hinduism, Ethnic Studies, Matrilineal Societies of North-East India
Prerna Pradhan specializes in studies of gender, religion, and ritual performance in South Asia, with particular interest in textual traditions of Hinduism (female-centric Saktism and Non-Canonical Laukika), as well as the cults of indigenous goddesses who have been co-opted within the fold of Hindu pantheon. Her research interest addresses the convergence of religion, gender performance and political discourse in North-East India and South Asia. Having received multiple fellowships that have allowed her to work with literatures in Assamese, Nepali, Bengali, Hindi, and French, and conduct ethnographic and archival research in India and Nepal, she is currently working on a manuscript titled, Blood and Divinity: The Menstrual Construction of Goddess Kamakhya in Assam.
She earned her MPhil and PhD degrees in Theatre and Performance Studies from the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research has been supported by the Maulana Azad National Fellowship, as well as grants from UNESCO, European Association for South Asian Studies and UCLA CWS. She has previously taught in the departments of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Delhi and Tezpur University (Assam) as well as Comparative Literature and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Her research has appeared in Journal of the Indian Anthropological Society, and she has presented her work at conferences and lecture series in Europe, North America, and Asia. Her recent publication includes a book chapter in an anthology titled Identity, Politics, and Narratives of Belonging: Northeast India in Literature and Contemporary Discourses. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), New Delhi from 2023-24.
Her MPhil research focused on Kumari (Living Goddess), a prepubescent Vajrayana Buddhist girl worshipped as the incarnation of the Hindu goddess, Taleju, by Hindu and Buddhist communities of Nepal. During 2012-2017, she undertook ethnographic fieldwork across multiple sites in Nepal, along with archival work at the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS, Tribhuvan University) and Nepal Academy. Her work examined the relocation of the Kumari worship from the Newar community space to the Royal Palace of Kathmandu in
the eighteenth century, with specific focus on the patronage of rituals, Kumari’s presence and gender performativity in the political landscape of Nepal.
Her doctoral research examined the ritual performance of Ambubachi, a festival devoted to the divine menstruation of Kamakhya, a Sakti goddess. During 2017-23, she undertook ethnography at Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati and surrounding regions in Assam, the northeastern state of India. Putting her fieldwork in dialogue with longstanding textual traditions of Hinduism and indigenous formations, she focused on the ritual sequestering of Kamakhya during Ambubachi. She examined this seclusion as a deliberate accommodation of female-centric Sakti ritual practices within the Vedic dichotomy of sacred and stigmatized bodies. More broadly, her work also analyzed contemporary practices of menstrual isolation in Assamese society.
Her post-doctoral research addressed the cultural evolution of subaltern serpent goddess Manasa in Assam through deodhani, a ritual dance form. Goddess Manasa like the other two goddesses discussed above was initially a non-Hindu goddess to be ‘reluctantly’ appropriated later. Unlike other Hindu goddesses who eventually become consorts of principal god Shiva, Manasa’s birth narrative as his accidental daughter and the inclusion of primary Hindu deities like Vishnu, Brahma within the deodhani repertoire points out to this sort of ritual accommodation. The research explored this dance form in three spaces—community site mandap (open yard) and manch (stage, both rural and urban) where female deodhanis from indigenous communities perform and at mandir (temple) where male deodhas from the lower caste transform into ghora (vehicle) of goddess Manasa during the annual deodhani festival held at Kamakhya temple. The research argued that this mobilization of spaces is a form of negotiation from the perspective of indigeneity, caste and gender as the dance form gradually transforms from a ritually-marginalized mode of worship into a ‘secular’ performing art.