Faculty Fellow

Whitney Cox

Associate Professor, South Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Chicago

Biography

Whitney Cox’s main interests are in the literary and intellectual history of southern India in the early second millennium CE. Within that broad range, his research has concentrated on Sanskrit kāvya and poetic theory, the history of the Śaiva religion, and medieval Tamil literature and epigraphy, especially that of the Coḻa dynastic state. Cox is also interested in the practice of literary translation and critical edition.

To learn more about Whitney Cox's research and publications, please visit his profile page at the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations.

wmcox@uchicago.edu

Topics

Featured Project

A screenshot of the CEDAR database shows sophisticated digital analysis of a biblical text.

The CEDAR Project: Critical Editions for Digital Analysis and Research

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2019 – 2022

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Projects

Entanglements of the Indian Past

Hemachandra, Leaf from a Jain manuscript, 13th century

Entanglements of the Indian Past

A series of interdisciplinary workshops focused on key themes and pivotal moments that shaped the course of Indian historiography will help chart a future course for the study of the Indian past.

The Entanglements of the Indian Past project aims to make the study of the Indian past more self-conscious of the forces that have shaped it. A three-year series of interdisciplinary workshops will focus on three issues where serious engagement is critical: caste, materiality, and historicality....

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2021 – 2025

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Sastram

This interdisciplinary collaboration examined the forms and intersecting histories of South Asian practices of knowledge, with a focus on the geographical and historical spread of cultural norms and technologies.

The Sanskrit word śāstra, from a verb meaning “to discipline, to govern,” supplies a blanket term for a vast and heterogeneous spectrum of Southern Asian texts and the social forms in which these have been propagated. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the very basis of South...

Project Team:

2019 – 2020

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Imperial Interstices: Agents of Eurasian Interaction in Late Antiquity

By investigating premodern interstitial regions of the Eurasian landmass as major centers of production, consumption, and influence, this project laid the groundwork for an integrated history of Eurasian late antiquity.

When we look at maps of the premodern world we see centralized empires divided by bold lines. In fact, we are learning that the boundaries between empires were more often vibrant and fluid zones for intense production and exchange. This is particularly so for the less studied areas of contact...

Project Team:

2016 – 2017

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