Jesse Knutson, Ph.D.

Books

• Kāmandaki’s Essence of Politics (Nītisāra), Murty Classical Library of India #28,
  Harvard University Press, 2021.
• [Review: Harald Wiese, Indo-Iranian Journal 64, 2021, pp 88-94.]
• Into the Twilight of Sanskrit Court Poetry: The Sena Salon of Bengal and Beyond,
  University of California Press, 2014. South Asian edition: Yoda Press, Delhi, 2016.
• Review: Luther Obrock, Bulletin de l’école française d’extrême-orient, Vol. 109 (2023);
• Review: Heidi Pauwels, Journal of Asian Studies 77.4, November 2018;
• Review: Ryosuke Furui, International Journal of Asian Studies 13.2 July 2016;
• Review Essay: Sylvain Brocquet, Bulletin d’études indiennes N ̊31 2013 [published
  2015].

Edited

• The Bloomsbury Cultural History of South Asian Literature Volume I: Antiquity.
  Forthcoming.
• Guest edited special section: Ādikāvyāni: Regional Rāmāyaṇas in Early Medieval South
  and Southeast Asia.” Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, 1-2, 2019.

Articles

• “babhūva tumulaṃ yuddham: Ineffable Tumult and the Fog of War in the Poetic
  Grammar of the Sanskrit Epics.” Mélanges d’indianisme en hommage à Sylvain
  Brocquet. Forthcoming.
• “Sanskrit Gone Wild: Dikpāladeva’s Dantewada Praśasti.” Kunal Chakrabarti
  Festschrift. Forthcoming.
• “Unbearable Levity: Desire’s Headwinds in Dhoyī’s Breeze Messenger (Pavanadūta)” in
  Bronner and Shulman ed. Mapping the World through Courier Poetry. Forthcoming.
• "Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes: the longue durée of literary registers in the kāvya
  tradition." in Comme une qui entra dans la forêt bruissante : Mélanges d’indianisme en
  hommage à Marie-Claude Porcher. Ed. Lyne Bansat-Boudon et Sylvain Brocquet.
  Bulletin d’Études Indiennes 36, 2023-2024.
• “The Poetics of Detachment in Medieval Kāvya: Anthologies and the Path of Literary
  Sanskrit in the Second Millennium.” Studies in History 1-13, 2021.
• “Introduction” (in Special Section, guest ed. Jesse R. Knutson): “Ādikāvyāni: Regional
  Rāmāyaṇas in Early Medieval South and Southeast Asia.” Rivista Degli Studi Orientali,
  1-2, 2019.
• “An Orgy of Order: the Bhaṭṭikāvya’s Scientific Experiment and the Reproduction of
  Aesthetic and Political Life in Early Medieval South Asia.” (in Special Section, guest ed.
  Jesse R. Knutson): “Ādikāvyāni: Regional Rāmāyaṇas in Early Medieval South and
  Southeast Asia.” Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, 1-2, 2019.
• “Kāvya and Us: Reading Innovations and Turning Points.” [Review Essay on Bronner et
  al. (2014): Innovations and Turning Points: Toward a History of Kāvya Literature.]
  Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 38.1, May 2018.
• “Eastern Gothic: From Kannauj to Bengal and Back in the Early Medieval Period” in
  Clio and Her Descendants: Essays for Kesavan Veluthat, Primus Books, Delhi, 2018.
• “Money, Morality, and Masculinity: Staging the Politics of Poverty in Sanskrit Theater”,
  Philosophy East and West vol. 66, 2016.
• “Political Pleasures in Late Classical India: Kālidāsa’s Spirituality and King Harṣadeva’s
  Imagination of Polygamous Urbanity” Rivista Degli Studi Orientali vol. lxxxviii, 2015.
• “Poetic Justice: On Kalhaṇa’s Historical Aesthetics”, Comparative Studies of South Asia,
  Africa, and the Middle East vol. 35, No. 2, August 2015.
• “The Mahābhārata’s Infernal Paradise: On the Premodern Condition”, Studies in History
  31 (2) August 2015.
• “The Gītagovinda and Beyond”, Journal of Vaiṣṇava Studies vol. 22 No. 1, Fall 2013.
• “History Beyond the Reality Principle: Literary and Political Territories in Sena Period
  Bengal”, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East vol. 32, No. 3,
  December 2012.
• “The Vernacular Cosmopolitan: Jayadeva’s Gītagovinda”, in South Asian Texts in
  History: Critical Engagements with Sheldon Pollock. ed. Yigal Bronner, Whitney Cox,
  and Lawrence McCrea, Association for Asian Studies, 2011.
• “The Political Poetic of the Sena Court”, Journal of Asian Studies vol. 69, issue 02, May
  2010.
• Samsṛktakābye o Baḍu Caṇḍidāser Śrīkrṣṇakīrttane Ākhyāner Sthān: Kichu Bhābanā [In
  Bengali] Gangeopatro 20, April 2008.
• “The Birth of the Anthology and the Social Life of Sanskrit Kāvya” in Biblio: A Review
  of Books vol. XI no. 3 and 4 March-April 2006.

Other Publications

• “Jayadeva and the Gītagovinda.” Oxford Bibliographies in Hinduism. Ed. Tracy
  Coleman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
  https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399318/obo-
  9780195399318-0204.xml
• “Jayadeva”, Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Ed. Knut A. Jacobsen, vol. 4 pp. 241-8,
  Brill, 2012.
• Translations of Bengali poems by Anjan Sen in Fulcrum: An Annual of Poetry and
  Aesthetics Issue No. 7, 2011.
• Entries on “Govardhana” and “Amaru” in the Encyclopedia of Erotic Literature ed.
  Gaëtan Brulotte and John Phillips, Routledge, 2006.

Book Reviews

Review: Mark McClish. The History of the Arthaśāstra: Sovereignty and Sacred Law in Ancient India. Bulletin of SOAS, 84.1, 2/2021.

Review: Thomas de Bruijn and Allison Busch, ed. Culture and Circulation: Literature in Motion in Early Modern India. Bulletin of SOAS 78/3 October 2015.

Review: McHugh, James. Sandalwood and Carrion: Smell in Indian Religion and Culture Indian Economic & Social History Review 52: 393-395, July-September 2015.

Review: Thapar, Romila. The Past Before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India. Bulletin of SOAS 78/1 February 2015.

Review: Brocquet, Sylvain. La Geste de Rāma: Poème a double sens de Sandhyākaranandin: introduction, texte, traduction, analyse. (Institut français de Pondichéry, École Française d’Extrême Orient), Journal of the American Oriental Society 131.1, 2011.

Review: Kesavan Veluthat. The Early Medieval in South India (Oxford University Press, 2009). Contributions to Indian Sociology 45: 123, 2011, pp.123-125.

Review: Kumkum Chatterjee. The Cultures of History in Early Modern India: Persianization and Mughal Culture in Bengal (Oxford University Press, 2009), Journal of Early Modern History vol 13.4, 2009, pp. 326-328.