Jesse Pruitt

Jesse is a PhD Candidate at the DSR and is affiliated with the Centre for South Asian Studies. He holds a BA from the University of Virginia with Distinction and an MA from the University of Chicago Divinity School. His research follows an important strand in the history of Modern Tamil Shaivism. Jesse's thesis explores modern developments in the cult of the Tamil God, Murugan, in the 19th and 20th centuries by reading widely in commentary, devotional poetry, sacred biography, and epic narrative. He also explores how the deity was linked to national and linguistic identity, how the cult at times positioned itself as parallel to Shaiva religion through the editing, publication, and accretion of paratexts to form a canon largely composed of works by the ~15th century Arunagirinatha, and how the religion was shaped by the contexts of its discursive participants -- urban, monastic, musical, political.