Suvarna Variyar

The University of Sydney, Studies in Religion, Department Member

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I completed a Doctor of Philosophy in December 2023 through the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney. I previously completed an MPhil with the same faculty in March 2018. My PhD work developed on the research areas of my MPhil, being the intersection of religion, gender, and politics in postcolonial India, by proposing new (old) approaches to Indian Hindu feminism, grounded in the epic text "The Mahabharata".

I have also written about French nationalism, the musicology of Les Misérables, and dynamics of taboo and gender in female public bathrooms.

Outside of academia, I am a practicing family lawyer, a fitness instructor, and a classical musician/music teacher.
Address: Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia

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Papers by Suvarna Variyar

SaadiaSumbal: Islam and Religious Change in Pakistan: Sufis and Ulema in 20th Century South Asia. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2022; pp. xv + 191

Journal of Religious History, Apr 23, 2023

Saving Sita: The Ramayana and Gender Narratives in Postcolonial Hindu Nationalism

This thesis examines the role that the Hindu epic the Ramayana plays in shaping the relationship ... more This thesis examines the role that the Hindu epic the Ramayana plays in shaping the relationship between conservative Hindu Indian nationalism and gender in post-colonial India. It demonstrates how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has manipulated understandings of the Ramayana to best serve its political aims since 1980, and to further an inherently sexist and discriminatory agenda. Chapter One outlines the role of exclusionary narrative in constructing national identity along conservative and fundamentalist lines. Drawing from this, it goes on to present and expand upon the key research questions explored in this thesis. Chapter Two examines the various relevant fields of literature which are involved in this discussion. Chapter Three outlines the key methodological fields from which this thesis draws as an intersectional study. Chapter Four analyses Valmiki’s Ramayana in considering its depiction of gender constructs, and touches upon the significance of the 1987 Ramayan televisio...

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Vijaya Ramaswamy, ed.: In Search of Vishwakarma: Mapping Indian Craft Histories. New Delhi: Primus Books, 2019; pp. x + 282

Do You Hear the People Sing?: Musical Aesthetics and French Nationalism in Alain Boubil and Claude-Michel Schonberg’s Adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables

Mester, 2017

Introduction In 1936, Walter Benjamin argued that the processes of copying, reproduction, and ada... more Introduction In 1936, Walter Benjamin argued that the processes of copying, reproduction, and adaptation strip authenticity from any original work. 1 I seek here to apply this principle to the reformation of French author Victor Hugo's 1862 literary opus Les Misérables, as it transforms from novel to Alain Boubil and Claude-Michel Schonberg's 1980 French rock opera adaptation, and again to the highly successful 1985 English production by Cameron Mackintosh. Hugo's original work was in effect a thesis novel, 2 with its key premise being that post-revolutionary France was intrinsically sacred, thereby elevating the State as a formless ideal towards godhead. I will argue in this article that the extremely popular Anglophone musical adaptation of Les Misérables illustrates a number of translation and adaptation choices which minimise and sideline the sacral-national core of Hugo's novel. These changes in turn highlight how the French state is conceived of as a sacral force in the original work-one framed by the unique European French linguistic and socio-historical context that defies transposition to a popular Anglophone discourse such as that of the Broadway musical-by examining the ways in which the contrasting aesthetics of language and narrative form serve to shape and alter meaning. This article addresses the following key questions: how does this theme fare when processed into a different form-the French rock opera of 1980

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Arshia Sattar, translator, Valmiki’s Ramayana

Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review, 2019

Arshia Sattar, translator, Valmiki’s Uttara Kanda: The Book of Answers

Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review, 2019

Michael J. Altman, Heathen, Hindoo, Hindu: American Representations of India, 1721-1893

Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review, 2019

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Linda Penkower and Tracy Pintchman, eds.: Hindu Ritual at the Margins: Innovations, Transformations, Reconsiderations . Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2014; pp. xiv + 235

Journal of Religious History, 2020

Hindu Ritual at the Margins is a thoughtful and fascinating collection of essays situated in the ... more Hindu Ritual at the Margins is a thoughtful and fascinating collection of essays situated in the growing field of ritual studies as a subset of the study of religion. This work offers a variety of approaches to forms of Hindu ritual performed in marginal contexts, highlighting a complexity to Hinduism that has not traditionally been explored in depth by Western scholars. The book is divided into three sections/ themes: "Transformations: History and Identity" (Chapters 1-3); "Innovations: Globalization and the Hindu Diaspora" (Chapters 4-6); and "Reconsiderations: Context and Theory" (Chapters 7-9). Leslie C. Orr's chapter, "The Medieval Murukaṉ: The Place of a God among His Tamil Worshippers," explores the medieval practices of worship of the god Murukaṉ. Literary sources on the subject of Murukaṉ and his worship between the seventh and fourteenth centuries are largely non-existent, due likely to Sanskritisation and the subsuming of Murukaṉ and other deities into the Saiva pantheon. In their absence, Orr turns to an examination of temple art and inscription to uncover "the variations, shifting patterns, and significance of the worship of Murukaṉ within the ritual context of the medieval temple" (p. 22). By situating the history of ritual and worship during this period within the context of premedieval literature and the later resurgence in popularity of Murukan, Orr successfully highlights the complex relationship of Murukan with other deities within the Hindu pantheon, and with his worshippers. In Chapter 2, "A Tale of Two Weddings: Gendered Performances of Tulsi's Marriage to Krsna," Tracy Pintchman focuses on two different types of ritual performance of the marriage between the basil plant goddess Tulsī to Kṛs : ṇa, as observed during fieldwork conducted between 1995 and 1998. Pintchman examines the visual elements of performance and ritual as reflections upon greater notions of identity, comparing the performance of Tulsi's marriage by female householdersfor whom the performance may have a "deep social resonance" (p. 55) to a performance by male renunciants. "The Role of Ritual in Two 'Blockbuster' Hindi Films" by Philip Lutgendorf examines the performance of ritual within well-known Hindi films, with regard to its function "in both a narrative and prescriptive manner" (p. 59). The chapter's focuses are on the performance of fasting in Jai Santoshi Maa (Hail to the Mother of Satisfaction), and the performance of wedding rituals in Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! (Who Am I to You?). In doing so, Lutgendorf takes an innovative approach to the study of films that have been the subject of numerous analyses and interpretations.

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