Wendy Doniger

Dec 11, 2024 | nytimes.com | Wendy Doniger

Although the music of "Die Frau ohne Schatten"("The Woman Without a Shadow") is often transcendentally beautiful, it is among the least performed of the Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal operas at the Metropolitan Opera. Its relatively rare appearance on the Met stage is, I believe, in large part because of its weird, somewhat incomprehensible, and to some contemporary tastes offensive, libretto.

Jul 9, 2024 | scroll.in | Wendy Doniger

When Brahma had created all the creatures, they became extremely old and numerous but did not die. There was no space between creatures at all, anywhere. The three worlds had no room to breathe, as if they had been tightly bound up. Then Brahma began to think about destroying it all, but he could not think of any reason to do this. From his anger, a fire came out of the nine openings of his body, and with that fire, Brahma burnt everything in all directions.

May 15, 2024 | lithub.com | Wendy Doniger

Freedom Song, Amit Chaudhuri’s third novel, is set in Calcutta in 1993. The book is pointillist in form, capturing both the inner and outer voices of its many characters. If Dylan Tomas, with his uncanny ear for unspoken thoughts, had written Under Milk Wood set not in a Welsh village but in an Indian city, this might be it. (Hilary Mantel has compared Chaudhuri’s approach to fiction to Proust. Colm Tóibín has likened it to both Proust and Joyce.

Mar 4, 2024 | publicseminar.org | Josephine Houman |Mat Cusick |Wendy Doniger |Chiara Bottici

Image credit: Henri-Edmond Cross “Venice: Night of the Festival of the Redeemer” (1903). Met Open Access. Content note: this piece contains extensive discussion of eating disorders. The summer I got my period was the summer I stopped eating.

Aug 26, 2023 | flipboard.com | Wendy Doniger

Ancient Indian texts didn't allow upward mobility. But how did men become saints? In 'Women, Androgynes and Other Mythical Beasts', Wendy Doniger explores local stories of saints who fit the non-Indian pattern such as Chaitanya, …