George Pati, Ph.D.

Department ChairSurjit S. Patheja Chair in World Religions and Ethics Professor of South Asian Religions and Cultures

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Arts and Sciences Building 308

BIOGRAPHY

George Pati, Ph.D., joined Valparaiso University in 2006. He holds the Surjit S. Patheja Chair in World Religions and Ethics and is a professor of South Asian religions and cultures. His commitment to excellence in teaching was recognized with numerous teaching awards, including the Valparaiso University Excellence in Teaching Award in 2016-2017. He was later nominated for the Valparaiso University Alumni Association Distinguished Teaching Award in 2020.

His interdisciplinary interests come together in his research, which mainly explores the embodiments of devotion in texts, rituals, and performances in Kerala, South India. He has authored “Religious Devotion and the Poetics of Reform: Love and Liberation in Malayalam Poetry” (2019), a study of Kumāran Āśān’s Malayalam poetry (1873–1924) emphasizing the importance of bhakti as both passionate expressions toward the deity and resistance and reform movement during the colonial period in Kerala, and coedited two volumes, “Transformational Embodiment in Asian Religions: Spatial Bodies, Subtle Bodies” (with Katherine Zubko, 2020), and “The Routledge Handbook of Religion and the Body” (with Yudit Greenberg, 2023). He has also published several research articles in scholarly journals. His current book project, “Corporeality, Spatiality, and Materiality: The Dynamics of Devotion in Kerala, India,” is an ethnographic study that explores festivals, spaces, and the production of sacredness in Kerala. He has curated an exhibition called “Sacred Spaces and Objects” at the Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso University, Indiana.

Currently, he serves as vice president of the Association for Asian Studies—Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs and co-chair of the Arts, Literature, and Religion Unit of the American Academy of Religion. He is the book series editor for the Springer Nature/Palgrave Macmillan series on Arts, Literature, and Religions.

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Religious Studies and South Asian Languages and Cultures, University Professors Program, Boston University, Boston

RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS

Anthropology of South Asian religions and cultures; ethnography; Devotional traditions of Hinduism; Malayalam language and literature; Poetics and Aesthetics; Sanskrit; Religion and the body; Rituals and performances; Kerala history and culture; Christianity

SELECT PUBLICATIONS

Books:

George Pati. Religious Devotion and the Poetics of Reform: Love and Liberation in Malayalam Poetry. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2019.

George Pati and Katherine C. Zubko, eds. Transformational Embodiment in Asian Religions: Subtle Bodies, Spatial Bodies. Routledge Studies in Religion Series. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2020.

Yudit K. Greenberg and George Pati, eds. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and the Body. Routledge Handbooks in Religion Series. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2023.

Articles, Chapters, and Entries:

Performance, Procession, and Place: The Production of Sacredness During the Uthra Śīvēli Festival at Śrī Vallabha Temple, Kerala. Journal of Hindu Studies. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhs/hiaf001.

Kaḷarippayaṭṭu. In Knut A. Jacobsen, ed., Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism. Volume 7. Leiden, Netherlands; Boston, MA: E. J. Brill, 2023, pp. 299–305.

“Performing Kṛṣṇa’s Body in Kerala.” In Yudit Greenberg and George Pati, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Religion and the Body. London and New York: Routledge, 2023, pp. 333–344.

Movements, Miracles, and Mysticism: Apotheosis of Sree Narayana Guru of Early Twentieth Century Kerala. In Diana Dimitrova and Tatiana Oranskaia, eds., Divinization in South Asian Traditions. London and New York: Routledge, 2018, pp. 115–130.

Sacred Spaces and Objects: The Visual, Material and Tangible. Valparaiso: Valparaiso University, 2016 (Curated exhibit).

“Feet like Lotus Powder.” In Wendy Doniger, ed., Hinduism: Norton Anthology of World Religion. Vol. 1. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2015, pp. 370–372.

Nambūtiris and Ayyappan Devotees in Kerala. In P. Pratap Kumar, ed., Contemporary Hinduism. London and New York: Routledge, 2014, pp. 204–216.

Narayana Guru. In Knut A. Jacobsen, ed., Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism: Symbolism, Diaspora, Modern Issues. Volume 5. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2013, pp. 559–565.

Temple and Human Bodies: Representing Hinduism. International Journal of Hindu Studies. Vol. 15, No. 2, 2011, pp. 191–207.

“Kaḷari and Kaḷarippayaṭṭu of Kerala, South India: Nexus of the Celestial, the Corporeal, and the Terrestrial.” Contemporary South Asia. Vol. 18, No. 2, 2010, pp. 175–189.

Regional Tradition, Kerala. In Knut A. Jacobsen, ed., Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism: Texts, Rituals, Arts, Concepts. Volume 2. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2010, pp. 606–614.

Mohiniyāṭṭam: An Embodiment of the Aesthetic and the Religious. Journal of Hindu Studies. Vol. 3, No. 1, 2010, pp. 91–113.

Body as Sacred Space in Kaḷaricikitsā of Kerala, South India. Religions of South Asia.Vol. 3, No. 2, 2009, pp. 235–250.

Kerala. In Knut A. Jacobsen, ed., Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism: Regions, Pilgrimage, and Deities. Volume 1. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2009, pp. 221–231.

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