Head of Department Prof. Dr. Ute Hüsken
Ute Hüsken is a professor and chair of the Cultural and Religious History of South Asia. Her research focuses on Buddhism, Hinduism, ritual and festival studies, gender studies, and the study of South Indian temple cultures. While her early works were purely philological in nature, her more recent scholarship combines methods from philology (Sanskrit, Pāli, Tamil) and ethnology.
Her most important publications include Die Vorschriften für die Buddhistische Nonnengemeinde im Vinaya-Piṭaka der Theravādin (Reimer, 1997), Viṣṇu's Children. Prenatal life-cycle rituals in South India (Harrassowitz, 2009), When Rituals Go Wrong. Mistakes, Failure, and the Dynamics of Ritual (Brill, 2007), Laughter, Creativity, and Perseverance: Female Agency in Hinduism and Buddhism (OUP, 2022), Temples, Texts, and Networks: South Indian Perspectives (ed. with Ambach and Buchholz, HASP, 2022), and Nine Nights of Power: Durgā, Dolls and Darbars (ed. with Narayanan and Zotter, SUNY, 2021). Together with Ronald Grimes and Sarah Pike she edits the series Oxford Ritual Studies Series (OUP), with Axel Michaels she co-edits the series Ethno-Indology at Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing (HASP), with Suganya Anandakichenin she co-edits the book series Pathika (HASP), and with Hans Harder she co-edits the bilingual journal Zeitschrift für Indologie und Südasienkunde. Ute Hüsken also leads the long-term project Hindu temple legends in South India at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences.
Selected Publications
Monographs
Viṣṇu’s Children. Prenatal life-cycle rituals in South India (Ethno-Indology. Heidelberg Studies in South Asian Rituals 9). Translated from German by Will Sweetman. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009.
- Republished in Open Access: Hüsken, Ute, Sweetman, Will (Übers.): Viṣṇu's Children: Prenatal life-cycle rituals in South India, Heidelberg: Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing, 2023 (2009) (Ethno-Indology – Heidelberg Studies in South Asian Rituals, Band 9).
https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/catalog/book/1218
- Republished in India: Hüsken, Ute, Sweetman, Will (trsl.): Viṣṇu's Children: Prenatal life-cycle rituals in South India, Delhi: Dev Publishers, 2025.
Die Vorschriften für die buddhistische Nonnengemeinde im Vinaya-Piṭaka der Theravādin (Monographien zur indischen Archäologie, Kunst und Philologie, 11) Berlin: Reimer, 1997.
- Republished in Open Access: Hüsken, Ute: Die Vorschriften für die buddhistische Nonnengemeinde im Vinaya-Piṭaka der Theravādin, Heidelberg; Berlin: CrossAsia-eBooks, 2021 (Monographien zur indischen Archäologie, Kunst und Philologie, Band 11).
https://doi.org/10.11588/xabooks.899
Editorship and Co-editorship
The God Who Does What He is Told: Essays and Materials on Yathoktakārī Perumāḷ, ed. by Ute Husken and Jonas Buchholz (Sacred Sites of South Asia Series 1). Heidelberg University Publishing: Heidelberg (2026).
Gendered Agency in Transcultural Hinduism and Buddhism, ed. by Ute Hüsken, Agi Wittich, and Nanette R. Spina (Routledge Critical Studies in Religion, Gender and Sexuality), London & New York: Routledge, 2024.
Laughter, Creativity, and Perseverance: Female Agency in Hinduism and Buddhism, ed. by Ute Hüsken (Religion, Culture, and History Series of the American Academy of Religion). New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.
Temples, Texts, and Networks: South Indian Perspectives, ed. by Malini Ambach, Jonas Buchholz, and Ute Hüsken. Heidelberg: HASP, 2022.
Nine Nights of Power: Durgā, Dolls and Darbars, ed. by Ute Hüsken, Vasudha Narayanan & Astrid Zotter, New York: SUNY, 2021.
Reading Slowly: A Festschrift for Jens E. Braarvig, Lutz Edzard, Jens W. Borgland and Ute Hüsken (eds.). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2018.
Buddhist Modernities. Re-inventing Tradition in the Globalizing Modern World (Routledge Studies in Religion), ed. by Hanna Havnevik, Ute Hüsken, Mark Teeuwen, Vladimir Tikhonov, Koen Wellens. New York: Routledge, 2017.
The Ambivalence of Denial. Danger and Appeal of Rituals, ed. by Ute Hüsken and Udo Simon. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2016.
South Asian Festivals on the Move, ed. by Ute Hüsken and Axel Michaels (Ethno-Indology. Heidelberg Studies in South Asian Rituals 13). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2013.
The Denial of Ritual, ed. by Ute Hüsken & Donna L. Seamone, Special Issue of The Journal of Ritual Studies (2013) 27.1.
Negotiating Rites, ed. by Ute Hüsken & Frank Neubert. The Oxford Ritual Studies Series, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Ritual, Media, and Conflict, ed. by Ronald L. Grimes, Ute Hüsken, Udo Simon & Eric Venbrux (The Oxford Ritual Studies Series), Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Ritual Matters. Dynamic Dimensions in Practice, ed. by Christiane Brosius & Ute Hüsken, New Delhi: Routledge India, 2010.
When Rituals Go Wrong. Mistakes, Failure, and the Dynamics of Ritual, ed. by Ute Hüsken, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2007.
Contact
Department of Cultural and Religious History of South Asia
South Asia Institute, Universität Heidelberg
Voßstraße 2, Building 4130
D-69115 Heidelberg
Room: 130.02.15
Phone: +49 (0) 6221 - 54 15 261
E-mail: huesken@uni-heidelberg.de
Consultation hours: by appointment via e-mail