Powers of Translation: Hindu Mythology, Fantasy Literature,and the Language of Belonging
Monday, April 7, 2025 4:15–6:00 PM
Description
Dr. Nell Shapiro Hawley, Postdoctoral Fellow in Religion at VassarStrange languages, superpowers, and otherworldly quests are beloved tropes in coming-of-age fantasy literature. The Aru Shah novels (Disney Hyperion, 2018-22), a bestselling fantasy series written by Roshani Chokshi, repurpose these genre expectations in order to allegorize second-generation American Hindu adolescence today.Here the heroine’s discovery of her superpowers is explicitly tied to a Hindu mythological world that is both strange and familiar to her. Through Aru’s complex relationship with language—her muted ability to understand Indian languages, but her deep intimacy with the stories of Hindu myth—the novels seek to frame meaningful Hindu knowledge as subjective, emotional, and interpersonal.Nell Shapiro Hawley is a scholar of South Asian religions, primarily Hinduism. Her work addresses popular religious movements, gender and performance studies, and interactions between the classical and the contemporary. A longstanding area of focus has been the text and performance traditions of the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata.