Office Location
311 Conklin Hall
Audrey Truschke received her Ph.D. in 2012 from Columbia University.
Professor Truschke's teaching and research interests focus on the cultural, imperial, and intellectual history of early modern and modern India (c. 1500-present). Her first book, Culture of Encounters (2016, Columbia University Press), investigates the literary, social, and political roles of Sanskrit as it thrived in the Persian-speaking, Islamic Mughal courts from 1560 to 1650. Her second book, Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King (2017, Stanford University Press), is a historical reassessment of one of the most hated kings in South Asian history (published in India and Pakistan as Aurangzeb: The Man and The Myth). Her third book, The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (2021, Columbia University Press), More broadly she publishes on cross-cultural exchanges, historical memory, and imperial power. Her teaching interests also include modern India and Pakistan, the history of Hinduism, and religious debates and conflicts.
Professor Truschke is currently working on a single volume history of India for Princeton University Press, with the support of a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Grant. She is also conducting research into the US-based Hindu Right.
Professor Truschke is a member of the South Asia Scholar Activist Collective and a contributor to the Hindutva Harassment Field Manual. You can view her full CV on her academia.edu profile page and learn more about Professor Truschke--including her media appearances and popular articles--on her website.
Research Initiatives
Awards
National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Fellowship, 2021
Global Equity Grant from Princeton University Press, 2020
Rutgers Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence, 2020
Rutgers Research Council Award, 2020
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2019
John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History for Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court, American Historical Association, 2017
Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Religious Studies, Stanford University, 2013-2016
NEH Fellowship for Summer Institute on Problems in the Study of Religion, July 2014
Research Fellowship in History, Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, 2012-2013
Perso-Indica Visiting Fellowship at the University Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III, May-June 2012
Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2011-2012
Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, 2009-2010
Education
Ph.D., Columbia University, 2012
BA, University of Chicago, 2004
Expertise
South Asian history, Mughal Empire, modern India and Pakistan
Publications
““Hindutva’s Dangerous Rewriting of History.” South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ), 24/25 (December 14: 2020). download.
"The Persian Text of the Doha Ramayana." In The Ramayana of Hamida Banu Begum, Queen Mother of Mughal India, co-authored by Marika Sarkar, John Seyller, and Audrey Truschke, 24–31. Cinisello Balsamo (Italy): Silvana Editoriale, 2020. download.
"A Padshah Like Manu: Political Advice for Akbar in the Persian Mahābhārata." Philological Encounters 5.2 (2020): 1-22. download.
“A Mughal Debate about Jain Asceticism.” In The Empires of the Near East and India: Sources Studies of the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal Literate Communities, edited by Hani Khafipour, 107-123. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019. download.
“Mughal Sanskrit Literature: The Book of War and the Treasury of Compassion.” In The Empires of the Near East and India: Sources Studies of the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal Literate Communities, edited by Hani Khafipour, 450-477. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019. download.
“The Power of the Islamic Sword in Narrating the Death of Indian Buddhism." History of Religions 57.4 (2018): 404-435. download.
Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King, Stanford University Press, 2017. link. (Indian edition by Penguin India and Pakistani edition by Oxford University Press - Karachi, both under title Aurangzeb: The Man and The Myth)
“Deceptive Familiarity: European Perceptions of Access at the Mughal Court.” In The Key to Power? The Culture of Access in Princely Courts, 1400-1700, edited by Dries Raeymaekers and Sebastiaan Derks, 65-99. Leiden: Brill, 2016. download.
Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court. Columbia University Press, South Asia Across the Disciplines Series, 2016. link.
“Imaginative Outsiders: Empowering Undergraduates to Analyze Religion,” in “Forum: Insiders, Outsiders, and Disclosure in the Undergraduate Classroom.” Teaching Theology & Religion 19.3 (2016): 282-286. download.
“Translating the Solar Cosmology of Sacred Kingship.” Medieval History Journal 19.1 (2016): 136-141. download.
"Contested History: Brahmanical Memories of Relations with the Mughals.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 58.4 (2015): 419-452. download.
“Dangerous Debates: Jain Responses to Theological Challenges at the Mughal Court.” Modern Asian Studies 49.5 (2015): 1311-1344. download.
“Indo-Persian Translations: A Disruptive Past.” Seminar 671 (July 2015). download.
“Regional Perceptions: Writing to the Mughal Court in Sanskrit.” In Cosmopolitismes en Asie du Sud. Sources, itinéraires, langues (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle), edited by Corinne Lefèvre, Ines Županov, and Jorge Flores, 251-274. Paris: Editions de l’EHESS, 2015. download.
“Reimagining the ‘Idol Temple of Hindustan’: Textual and Visual Translation of Sanskrit Texts in Mughal India,” co-authored with Qamar Adamjee. In Pearls on a String: Artists, Patrons, and Poets at the Great Islamic Courts, edited by Amy Landau, 141-165 (2015). Baltimore: Walters Art Museum; Seattle: University of Washington Press. download.
“Defining the Other: An Intellectual History of Sanskrit Lexicons and Grammars of Persian.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 40.6 (2012): 635-668. download.
“Jainism and Islam” articles, Jainpedia.org (2012). Four articles on: Jainism and Islam, Jains and the Delhi Sultanate, Jains and the Mughals, Jains and Muslim Iconoclasm. link.
“Setting the Record Wrong: A Sanskrit Vision of Mughal Conquests.” South Asian History and Culture 3.3 (2012): 373-396. download.
“The Mughal Book of War: A Persian Translation of the Sanskrit Mahabharata.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 31.2 (2011): 506-520. download.