Talk:Jesse Knutson

By Sachi Anjunkar

Jesse Knutson, Ph.D. is a Professor of Sanskrit at University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa on as of June 2024. According to his university profile, his research interests are Sanskrit literature and literary theory, ancient and early medieval history and literary history of South Asia, Early Middle Bengali poetry, comparative premodern poetry and poetics.

He has published no books, papers, or research pertaining to Hindus, the Indus Civilization or the caste.

In 2016, he signed a letter endorsing a letter submitted by the South Asia Faculty Group where it addressed the State Board of Education, California Department of Education, dated May 17, 2016. In this letter they requested removing the word India from textbooks. In addition, they falsely stated:

1. "There is no established connection between Hinduism and the Indus Civilization."
2. "It is inappropriate to remove mention of the connection of caste to Hinduism."

Publications

Books

1. Knutson, Jesse. Kāmandaki’s Essence of Politics (Nītisāra). Murty Classical Library of India, Harvard University Press, 2021.
2. Knutson, Jesse. Into the Twilight of Sanskrit Court Poetry: The Sena Salon of Bengal and Beyond. University of California Press, 2014. South Asian edition: Yoda Press, Delhi, 2016.
3. Knutson, Jesse. “The Poetics of Detachment in Medieval Kāvya: Anthologies and the Path of Literary Sanskrit in the Second Millennium.” Studies in History, 2021.

Selected Articles

1. Knutson, Jesse. “An Orgy of Order: the Bhaṭṭikāvya’s Scientific Experiment and the Reproduction of Aesthetic and Political Life in Early Medieval South Asia.” Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, vol. 1-2, Nov. 2019.
2. Knutson, Jesse. “Eastern Gothic: From Kannauj to Bengal and Back in the Early Medieval Period.” In Clio and His Descendants: Essays for Kesavan Veluthat, Primus Books, 2018.
3. Knutson, Jesse. “Kāvya and Us: Reading Innovations and Turning Points.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, vol. 38, no. 1, May 2018.
4. Knutson, Jesse. “Money, Morality, and Masculinity: Staging the Politics of Poverty in Sanskrit Theater.” Philosophy East and West, vol. 66, 2016.
5. Knutson, Jesse. “Political Pleasures in Late Classical India: Kālidāsa’s Spirituality and King Harṣadeva’s Imagination of Polygamous Urbanity.” Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, 2015.
6. Knutson, Jesse. “Poetic Justice: On Kalhaṇa’s Historical Aesthetics.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, vol. 35, no. 2, Aug. 2015.
7. Knutson, Jesse. “The Mahābhārata’s Infernal Paradise: On the Premodern Condition.” Studies in History, vol. 31, no. 2, Aug. 2015.
8. Knutson, Jesse. “The Gītagovinda and Beyond.” Journal of Vaiṣṇava Studies, vol. 22, no. 1, Fall 2013.
9. Knutson, Jesse. “History Beyond the Reality Principle: Literary and Political Territories in Sena Period Bengal.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, vol. 32, no. 3, Dec. 2012.
10. Knutson, Jesse. “The Vernacular Cosmopolitan: Jayadeva’s Gītagovinda.” In South Asian Texts in History: Critical Engagements with Sheldon Pollock, edited by Yigal Bronner, Whitney Cox, and Lawrence McCrea, Association for Asian Studies, 2011.
11. Knutson, Jesse. “The Political Poetic of the Sena Court.” Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 69, no. 02, May 2010.
12. Knutson, Jesse. "Samsṛktakābye o Baḍu Caṇḍidāser Śrīkrṣṇakīrttane Ākhyāner Sthān: Kichu Bhābanā." Gangeopatro, vol. 20, April 2008.