Christian Novetzke

Professor

About

Christian Lee Novetzke holds a College of Arts and Sciences Endowed Professorship and is a Professor in the South Asia Program, the Comparative Religion Program, and the International Studies Program at the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies. He teaches and writes about religion, history, and culture in South Asia, as well as theoretical issues in the study of religion in general and its intersection with historiography. He works with Marathi and Hindi materials, including textual, ethnographic, and visual/filmic sources. He specializes in the study of Maharashtra from the second millennium CE to the present, ranging from the medieval period, through the colonial and modern periods, to the postcolonial era. Professor Novetzke’s first book, Religion and Public Memory (Columbia University Press 2008) won the American Academy of Religion’s award “The Best First Book in the History of Religions” in 2009. The book has been published in India under the title History, Bhakti, and Public Memory by Permanent Black. His second book, co-authored with William Elison and Andy Rotman, is Amar Akbar Anthony:  Bollywood, Brotherhood, and the Nation, published by Harvard University Press in 2016.  His third book, solo authored, is The Quotidian Revolution, published by Columbia University Press, 2016.


Education

  • Columbia University, Ph.D. Religious Studies, 2003
  • Harvard University, M.T.S. Religious Studies, 1996
  • Macalester College, B.A. Asian Philosophy and English, with honors, 1993
  • Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, Pune, India, Certificate in Marathi Language and Culture, 1991