Ramayana Remix: Two “Bollywood” Filmsong Sequences as Epic Commentary

Yale is pleased to welcome Philip Lutgendorf, Professor of Hindi and Modern Indian Studies at the University of Iowa, to campus this fall. He will be presenting an illustrated lecture, �Ramayana Remix: Two �Bollywood� Filmsong Sequences as Epic Commentary,� on September 16 at the Macmillan Center. Professor Lutgendorf received his Ph.D. with distinction from the University of Chicago in South Asian Languages and Civilizations. He teaches Hindi language classes as well as courses on the written and oral narrative traditions of South Asia, including popular film or Bollywood.

His dissertation, The Life of a Text: Performing the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas, (University of California Press, 1991) won the A. K. Coomaraswamy Book Prize of the Association for Asian Studies in 1993. It examined performances of the epic tradition as a means of cultural evolution and expression, as well as the importance of performance and oral tradition to a largely illiterate audience. The epic Ramcaritmanas is the most popular and influential work of Hindi-speaking North India by the poet Tulsidas. It’s a sixteenth century retelling of the classic Ramayana story, which is the foundation of the Indian mythological tradition. Professor Lutgendorf drew on his fieldwork in Banaras, India, in order to write the book, which has been embraced by anthropologists, historians of religion, and readers interested in the performance arts and the culture of North India.

Professor Lutgendorf received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002-2003 for his research on Hanuman, allowing him to publish a book called Hanuman’s Tale: the Messages of a Divine Monkey (Oxford University Press, 2007). Hanuman, a deity in monkey form, is the stalwart helper of Ram and Sita, the separated lovers in the Ramayana. Ram and Sita are usually the stars of the story, and they considered incarnations of the gods Vishnu and Lakshmi, respectively. Professor Lutgendorf’s book investigates Hanuman as one of India’s most beloved and worshiped gods as well.

In 2008, he became the Project Director of the American Institute of Indian Studies Advanced Language Programs in India, the recipient of a Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The institute offers intensive programs for language study of many South Asian languages, including Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Punjabi, Sanksrit, Pali, and Gujrati, among others. Students stay with host families to be completely immersed in the language.

Professor Lutgendorf is interested in the myths, folklore, and popular culture of India. Realizing the importance of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata is critical to understanding Bollywood films. Dramatic, classic epics provide the cultural framework for comprehending the reasons for Bollywood’s popularity. Professor Lutgendorf’s background and extensive research of Indian epics coupled with his interest in modern Indian culture enables him to draw connections between Bollywood and classic epics. His website, �Philip’s Filums: Notes on Indian Popular Cinema,� was developed as a teaching tool for instructions and contains illustrated notes on over one hundred films spanning five decades. Professor Lutgendorf also translated the songs and album notes for the Grammy-nominated compact disc, �You�ve Stolen My Heart: Songs from R. D. Burman�s Bollywood� by Kronos Quartet/Asha Bhosle. His work is published in countless journals and encyclopedias, and he continues to give lectures all over the country.