Andrew Ollett

Andrew Ollett, Associate Professor of Division of the Humanities South Asian Languages and Civilizations Department at the University of Chicago. He studies the literary and intellectual traditions of South Asia, including works composed in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsha, and Kannada, mostly falling within the first millennium of the common era. His research has focused on the “question of language”: the availability and choice of certain languages for certain purposes, and the role of language in cultural production and change. Currently he is working with Sarah Pierce Taylor on an edition and translation The Way of the Poet-King (Kavirājamārgaṁ), a manual for composing literature in Kannada, one of the regional languages of south India. He is preparing an edition and translation of another work of poetics, this one in Prakrit, called the Mirror of Ornaments (Alaṅkāradappaṇaṁ). His edition and translation of Līlāvaī, a romance in Prakrit verse composed around 800, will appear in the Murty Classical Library of India.

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