Alaka Atreya Chudal

Alaka Atreya Chudal

Contact: 

E-Mail: alaka.chudal@univie.ac.at

Dr. Alaka Atreya Chudal holds a PhD (2014) in Modern South Asian Studies from the University of Vienna, an MA in Nepali Literature and Linguistics (2007) from Tribhuvan University, an MA in Sanskrit Grammar (1992) from Sampurnananda Sanskrit University, and an MA in Eastern Philosophy (Sanskrit) (1994) from Nepal Sanskrit University, where she later worked as a lecturer in the Department of Eastern Philosophy (1995-2007). 

A scholar of South Asian Studies, Alaka Atreya Chudal's research is situated within an interdisciplinary paradigm. It integrates anthropology, literary studies, history, religious studies, cultural studies, print culture, intellectual history, masculinity and gender studies with a focus on Nepal and India from the late nineteenth century to the present. Her monograph, A Freethinking Cultural Nationalist: A Life History of Rahul Sankrityayan (Oxford University Press, 2016), which won the Savitri Chandra Shobha Memorial Prize for 'Book on History of Indian Literature and Culture (2013-18)' at the 80th session of the Indian History Congress, deals with the intellectual history of North India and Nepal, focusing on the Indian intellectual Rahul Sankrityayan and his multifaceted personality. Her other book is Gorkhāli yudddhabandīkā lokbhākā ra kathā, [ A study and transcription of the Nepali voice recordings of Gurkha prisoners of war in the First World War]. (Kathmandu: Nepal Academy, 2021).  Her work has also been published in numerous journals. Some of her other selected works are Rāmro Nepālī: Einführung in Nepali I (Nepali language book in German) (Bremen: Hempen Verlag, 2019), Nināda Vallarī, [an Elegy in Nepali] (Kathmandu: Nepalaya, 2021) and Auf der Suche nach dem eigenen Sein: Frauen aus Nepal erzählen. [A German translation of selected personal Narratives by Nepali writers] (Heidelberg: Draupadi Verlag, 2018) etc.

She is currently working on a book project using the audio recordings of Indian prisoners of war in World War I in various Indian languages as primary sources, drawing on her wider interests in colonial history, vernacular literature, print history and anthropology. She is also working on The Secret Vow to the Goddess, an English translation of the Svasthanivratakatha, a project supported by an NEH Scholarly Editions and Translations Grant and under contract with Oxford University Press.