Heike Oberlin und Elena Mucciarelli

Biographie Heike Oberlin

PD Dr. phil. habil. Heike Oberlin (née Moser): Studium der Indologie und Ethnologie an der Univ. Tübingen und des Sanskrittheaters Kūṭiyāṭṭam unter P.N. Girija und Rama Chakyar am Kerala Kalamandalam, Indien. 2004 Promotion in Würzburg über Kūṭiyāṭṭam, Auszeichnung mit dem Ernst-Waldschmidt-Preis 2008. 2013 Habilitation, Venia legendi für Indologie (Univ. Tübingen). Derzeitige Position: Geschäftsführerin des Asien-Orient-Instituts der Univ. Tübingen, Mitarbeit in Forschung und Lehre in der Abt. für Indologie.

Biographie Elena Mucciarelli

Her areas of interest are the old Indian ritual and poetic tradition and the cultural history of South India. On this topic she has worked as research fellow in the project "Kudiyattam: Living Sanskrit Theater in the Kerala Tradition” (Universities of Jerusalem and Tübingen, 2013-2015), and as principal investigator in the project “Kings of the Wild: the re-use of local and Vedic elements in the legitimation process of Medieval Karnataka” (University of Tübingen, 2015).

Abstract: India: Colouring texts

In this workshop we want to guide the participants on a virtual tour through South Asia using colours as our vehicle and texts as our “Virgil”: We are going to visit big temples and local shrines, and we will see how the religious and social structures of the society are embodied in the pigments used to depict the statues as well as the dresses of the devotees. Further we will let the colours tell us the story of the royal power as it is depicted in the inscriptions and on the walls of the palaces. Finally we may enter in the sacred space of traditional theatre, where once again colours are part of the representation. The texts that will accompany us all over the tour will be in the original languages, but colours will provide us the means to understand them regardless of our familiarity with the multiplicity of South Asian idioms.