In Maharashtra in the 13th century, a new regional literature in Marathi joined together religious expression and social critique of caste and gender inequities as endemic to everyday life. This lecture will argue that the focus on everyday life and its social vicissitudes marks the very quality of vernacularization at all times, even today in the “vernacularization of democracy.” Vernacularization compels an engagement with quotidian social order discussed in the language and publics of everyday life.

The materials to be examined in this talk involve three sources: 1) Marathi inscriptions from the 12th to early 14th centuries; 2) the Lilacharitra (1278), the first extant work of Marathi literature; and 3) the Jnaneshwari (1290), often considered the first self-consciously literary work of Marathi. Through these sources we will see the idea emerge that everyone, regardless of caste, class, or gender, is entitled to hear the words of spiritual salvation even if social equality remains an elusive possibility of the future.

Christian Novetzke 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, where he holds a College of Arts and Sciences Endowed Professorship. He also serves as the Associate Director of the Jackson School and the Director of the Center for Global Studies. His books include: Religion and Public Memory (Columbia University Press, 2008); Amar Akbar Anthony: Bollywood, Brotherhood, and the Nation (with Andy Rotman and William Elison, Harvard University Press, 2016); and The Quotidian Revolution: Vernacularization, Religion, and the Premodern Public Sphere in India (Columbia University Press, 2016).

Cosponsored by the Department of History.