Profile for Gita Pai | UW-La Crosse

Gita Pai

Professor

History

Specialty area(s)

South Asia (and its diaspora); British Empire; colonialism & postcolonialism; gender & sexuality; global studies; material & visual culture; political history; religion

Director, International & Global Studies Program

Brief biography

I teach courses that introduce the history of South Asia and its diaspora to the non-specialist as well as focus on thematic topics like religion, politics, and gender in the early modern, colonial, and postcolonial contexts of South Asia. Home to 1/4 of the world’s population, South Asia comprises Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Nearly 6 million people in the U.S. have family origins in South Asia, including me: I was born in Texas and raised in California by parents who immigrated from India.

In my courses, I encourage students to study the past from a variety of perspectives—social, economic, cultural, environmental, and political—and to understand the world they live in as a product of historical processes. To do so, I often employ the lenses of literary, visual, historical, ethnographic, and cinematic texts. I also direct the International & Global Studies Program and teach its capstone course.

As a historian of South Asia with interests in cultural, political, and religious history, my research focuses primarily on southeastern India, a region that is today Tamil Nadu. My first monograph Architecture of Sovereignty: Stone Bodies, Colonial Gazes, and Living Gods in South India (Cambridge UP, 2023) traces historical transformations of a prominent temple site in Madurai through architecture, notions of sovereignty, visual culture, ritual practices, gender, and cultural tourism. My book-in-progress In Pursuit of Dancing Śiva: The History of India’s Iconic Cultural Treasure examines a popular temple icon through dynastic politics, art history, ritual innovation, dance practices, and transnational crime.

My research has been supported by the Princeton University Library Special Collections Research Grant 2020-21; American Institute of Indian Studies Fellowship 2019-20; NEH Summer Institute Stipend 2018; UWL International Scholarship Grants 2017, 2019, 2023; Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship 2016-17; UWL Faculty Research Grants 2011-12, 2016-17, 2019-20; American Association of University Women American Fellowship 2008-09; Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship 2006-07; UCB Townsend Center for the Humanities Fellowship 2005-06; and UCB Dean's Normative Time Fellowship 2004-05.

In recognition of my teaching, scholarship, and mentoring, I am a two-time recipient of ALANA's Phenomenal Womxn’s Award given by Asian, Latinx, African, and Native American women of color students at UWL.

Education

Ph.D. South Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley (w/ a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, & Sexuality)
M.A. South Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley
M.S. Education, California State University, Hayward
B.A. English Language Arts and Education, Hunter College (C.U.N.Y.)

Career

Teaching history

@ UW-La Crosse
World History (HIS 110)
Historiography and Historical Method (HIS 200)
Survey of Asia (HIS 250)
History of Hinduism (HIS 328)
Modern South Asia (HIS 363)
Gandhi and the World (HIS 364)
Women in South Asia (HIS 383)
British Empire (HIS 410)
Religion and Conflict in Modern South Asia (HIS 415)
History Research Seminar (HIS 490)
Engaging Global Challenges and Opportunities (INS 494)

@ UC Berkeley
Survey of India (HIST 11)
Research Seminar (HIST 101)
Proseminar: Gandhi (HIST 103)
Modern South Asia (HIST 114B)

Professional history

UW-La Crosse
Assistant/Associate/Full Professor, History 2010-present
Director, International & Global Studies Program 2017-present
Affiliated Faculty, Race, Gender, & Sexuality Studies 2011-present

French Institute of Pondicherry
Senior Research Fellow, American Institute of Indian Studies 2022-23
Senior Research Fellow, US-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) Fulbright-Nehru Program 2016-17

Yale University
Summer Scholar, National Endowment for the Humanities 2018

UC Berkeley
Visiting Assistant Professor, History 2012-13
Instructor, South Asian Studies, Gender & Women’s Studies, and History of Art 2003-09

Research and publishing

Book
Architecture of Sovereignty: Stone Bodies, Colonial Gazes, and Living Gods in South India (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Articles, chapters, essays, reviews, translations
"Activist authors, duty-bound Arjuna, and selfless action in early Indian nationalism,” in Mythologizing in South Asian Traditions: Myth, Gender, Power, and Politics, ed. Diana Dmitrova (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025). [in press]

“Screening photographs: Global tourism and cultural heritage in south India,” PLATFORM, December 9, 2024, https://www.platformspace.net/home/screening-photographs-global-tourism-and-cultural-heritage-in-south-india.

“Viral Vilification,” in Media Narratives and the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Asian Experience, eds. Shubhda Arora and Keval J. Kumar (Routledge, 2023), 187-196.

“Hearing Voices,” in Reflections on Women Rewrite America: Transformative Learning in the Humanities (blog), CUNY Academic Commons, February 22, 2022, https://transform.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2022/02/22/reflections-on-women-rewrite-america-transformative-learning-in-the-humanities-series/.

“On being Asian American in La Crosse: A look at history, population growth, and a critical examination of the model minority myth,” with Gerald Iguchi, Currents: University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Blog, February 18, 2022, https://www.uwlax.edu/currents/on-being-asian-american-in-la-crosse/. In print and online w/o hyperlinks as “Now U Know: On Being Asian American in La Crosse,” with Gerald Iguchi, La Crosse Tribune, February 2, 2022, B3, https://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/now-u-know-on-being-asian-american-in-la-crosse/article_4cda7303-a23d-5244-86c3-980307a08835.html.

“Art and architecture of the Vijayanagara empire,” in Smarthistory, October 25, 2021, https://smarthistory.org/art-and-architecture-of-vijayanagara-empire/. Reproduced for Khan Academy's Course: Art of Asia, Unit 7: South Asia 1500-1857 C.E. as "Art and architecture of Vijayanagara empire," https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-asia/south-asia/x97ec695a:1500-1850-deccan-south/a/art-and-architecture-of-vijayanagara-empire.

"When humans pose as Hindu gods," in Rethinking the Body in South Asian Traditions, ed. Diana Dimitrova (Routledge, 2021), 116-136. Paperback 2022.

"How do pandemics change us?" with Kjerstin Lang and Penelope Hardy, Currents: University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Blog, June 21, 2021, https://www.uwlax.edu/currents/how-do-pandemics-change-us/.

“From warrior queen to Śiva’s consort to political pawn: the genesis and development of a local goddess in Madurai,” in Divinizing in South Asian Traditions, eds. Diana Dimitrova & Tatiana Oranskaia (Routledge, 2018), 59-70. Paperback 2020.

"Two sides of the 'India's daughters' coin," Vidura-A Journal of the Press Institute of India 9, no. 1 (2017): 11-12.

“An Imperial Japanese Visitor in Colonial India: Exchange, Resistance, and Formations of Asian Modernity,” Prabuddha Bharata ('Awakened India') 122, no. 1 (2017): 185-196. Issue: Special edition on Sister Nivedita aka Margaret E. Noble.

“Re-Enchantment in the Museum: Gaṇeśa, Hindu Art and the Living Divine,” Journal of Curatorial Studies 5, no. 2 (2016): 162-185.

“Producing heritage: culture as commodity in Madurai,” International Journal of Tourism Anthropology 5, no. 1/2 (2016): 47-70. Issue: “Sites of Religion, Sites of Heritage: Exploring the Interface between Religion and Heritage in Tourist Destinations.”

“Orwell’s Reflections on Saint Gandhi,” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 40, no. 1 (2014): 51-77. Issue: “Orienting Orwell: Asian and Global Perspectives on George Orwell.”

Review of Faisal Devji, The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptation of Violence (Harvard University Press, 2012). History: Review of New Books 42, no. 1 (2014): 30-31.

Vikrama Cholan Ulaa by Ottakkuthar, trans. with Kausalya Hart (Dhwani Books, 2003).

Public-facing scholarship
Gita V. Pai, interview by Dr. Meenakshi Anantram, Desi Dynamos: Stories of Indian-American Trailblazers S1: E5, November 1, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aKzDWvLE7c.

Gita V. Pai on the Minakshi Temple, Madurai, India in Monuments Sacrés: Temples d’Asie: Les hommes, la nature et les dieux (Sacred Spaces-Temples of Asia: Humans, Nature, and Gods), directed by Véronique Legendre (ARTE France & ZED, 2018/CuriosityStream, 2019). on location trailer