Profile for Gita Pai | UW-La Crosse

Gita Pai

Professor

History

Specialty area(s)

South Asia (and its diaspora); British Empire; colonialism & postcolonialism; gender & sexuality; global studies; material & visual culture; political history; religion

Director, International & Global Studies Program*

• on sabbatical until fall 2027 •

Brief biography

Gita V. Pai is a cultural historian of South Asia. Home to roughly one quarter of the world’s population, South Asia generally comprises Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Over six million people in the U.S. share this demographic, including Prof. Pai herself: she was born in Texas to South Indian immigrants and raised in Northern California.

Her courses explore the history of South Asia and its diaspora, alongside thematic topics like religion, politics, and gender in the early modern, colonial, and postcolonial eras. Using literary, visual, historical, ethnographic, and cinematic texts, she encourages students to study the past from various perspectives—social, economic, cultural, environmental, and political—and to understand their contemporary world as a product of historical processes. As director of the International & Global Studies Program, she also teaches its capstone course. *While Prof. Pai is on her AY 2026-2027 sabbatical leave, please contact interim director Dr. Elizabeth Peacock.

Her research examines the intersection of religion, aesthetics, and material culture in southeastern India, a region known today as Tamil Nadu. Her first book, Architecture of Sovereignty: Stone Bodies, Colonial Gazes, and Living Gods in South India (Cambridge University Press, 2023) provides a diachronic biography and reception history of a prominent temple site in Madurai. Her current monograph project, In Pursuit of Dancing Śiva: The History of India’s Iconic Cultural Treasure traces a popular temple icon from medieval Tamil devotionalism to modern restitution disputes.

Her scholarship has been supported by grants and fellowships from the American Association of University Women, the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Friends of the Princeton University Library, the Fulbright-Hays Program, the Fulbright-Nehru Program (twice), the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, the Townsend Center for the Humanities at UC Berkeley, the UW-La Crosse College of Arts, Social Sciences, & Humanities, and the UW-La Crosse Office of the Provost.

In recognition of her teaching, scholarship, and service to the campus communitiy, Prof. Pai is a two-time recipient of the ALANA Phenomenal Woman Award (2019, 2024) given by UW-La Crosse's Asian, Latinx, African, and Native American women of color students.

Education

Ph.D. South Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley (with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality)
M.A. South Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley
M.S. Education, California State University, Hayward
B.A. English Language Arts and Education, Hunter College (C.U.N.Y.)

Career

Teaching history

@ UW-La Crosse
World History (HIS 110) FEATURED in the NEWS! 1 2 3
How We Got Here: History of Today's Global Issues (HIS 195)
Historiography and Historical Method (HIS 200)
Survey of Asia (HIS 250)
History of Hinduism (HIS 328)
Modern South Asia (HIS 363)
Gandhi and the World (HIS 364)
Women in South Asia (HIS 383)
British Empire (HIS 410)
Religion and Conflict in Modern South Asia (HIS 415)
History Research Seminar (HIS 490)
Engaging Global Challenges and Opportunities (INS 494)

@ UC Berkeley
Survey of India (HIST 11)
Research Seminar (HIST 101)
Proseminar: Gandhi (HIST 103)
Modern South Asia (HIST 114B)

Professional history

UW-La Crosse
Assistant/Associate/Full Professor, History 2010-present
Director, International & Global Studies Program 2017-present
Affiliated Faculty, Race, Gender, & Sexuality Studies 2011-present

University of Wisconsin-Madison
Affiliated Faculty, Center for South Asia 2026-present

French Institute of Pondicherry
Research Fellow, US-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) Fulbright-Nehru Program 2016-2017, 2026-2028
Research Fellow, American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) 2022-2023

Yale University
Summer Scholar, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute 2018

UC Berkeley
Visiting Assistant Professor, History 2012-2013
Instructor, South Asian Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, and History of Art 2003-2009

Research and publishing

Monograph
Architecture of Sovereignty: Stone Bodies, Colonial Gazes, and Living Gods in South India (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Articles, chapters, essays, reviews, translations
"Activist Authors, Duty-Bound Arjuna, and Selfless Action in Early Indian Nationalism,” in Mythologizing in South Asian Traditions: Myth, Gender, Power, and Politics, ed. Diana Dimitrova (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), 181-219.

“Screening Photographs: Global Tourism and Cultural Heritage in South India,” PLATFORM, December 9, 2024, https://www.platformspace.net/home/screening-photographs-global-tourism-and-cultural-heritage-in-south-india.

“Viral Vilification,” in Media Narratives and the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Asian Experience, eds. Shubhda Arora and Keval J. Kumar (Routledge, 2024), 187-196.

“Hearing Voices,” in Reflections on Women Rewrite America: Transformative Learning in the Humanities (blog), CUNY Academic Commons, February 22, 2022, https://transform.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2022/02/22/reflections-on-women-rewrite-america-transformative-learning-in-the-humanities-series/.

“On being Asian American in La Crosse: A look at history, population growth, and a critical examination of the model minority myth,” with Gerald Iguchi, Currents: University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Blog, February 18, 2022, https://www.uwlax.edu/currents/on-being-asian-american-in-la-crosse/. In print and online without hyperlinks as “Now U Know: On Being Asian American in La Crosse,” with Gerald Iguchi, La Crosse Tribune, February 2, 2022, B3, https://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/now-u-know-on-being-asian-american-in-la-crosse/article_4cda7303-a23d-5244-86c3-980307a08835.html.

“Art and architecture of the Vijayanagara empire,” in Smarthistory, October 25, 2021, https://smarthistory.org/art-and-architecture-of-vijayanagara-empire/. Reproduced for Khan Academy, Course: Art of Asia, Unit 7: South Asia 1500-1857 C.E. as "Art and architecture of Vijayanagara empire," https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-asia/south-asia/x97ec695a:1500-1850-deccan-south/a/art-and-architecture-of-vijayanagara-empire.

"When humans pose as Hindu gods," in Rethinking the Body in South Asian Traditions, ed. Diana Dimitrova (Routledge, 2021), 116-136. Paperback in 2022.

"How do pandemics change us?" with Kjerstin Lang and Penelope Hardy, Currents: University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Blog, June 21, 2021, https://www.uwlax.edu/currents/how-do-pandemics-change-us/.

“From warrior queen to Śiva’s consort to political pawn: the genesis and development of a local goddess in Madurai,” in Divinizing in South Asian Traditions, eds. Diana Dimitrova and Tatiana Oranskaia (Routledge, 2018), 59-70. Paperback in 2020.

"Two sides of the 'India's daughters' coin," Vidura-A Journal of the Press Institute of India 9, no. 1 (2017): 11-12.

“An Imperial Japanese Visitor in Colonial India: Exchange, Resistance, and Formations of Asian Modernity,” Prabuddha Bharata ('Awakened India') 122, no. 1 (2017): 185-196. Issue: Special edition on Sister Nivedita aka Margaret E. Noble.

“Re-Enchantment in the Museum: Gaṇeśa, Hindu Art and the Living Divine,” Journal of Curatorial Studies 5, no. 2 (2016): 162-185.

“Producing heritage: culture as commodity in Madurai,” International Journal of Tourism Anthropology 5, no. 1/2 (2016): 47-70. Issue: “Sites of Religion, Sites of Heritage: Exploring the Interface between Religion and Heritage in Tourist Destinations.”

“Orwell’s Reflections on Saint Gandhi,” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 40, no. 1 (2014): 51-77. Issue: “Orienting Orwell: Asian and Global Perspectives on George Orwell.”

Review of Faisal Devji, The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptation of Violence (Harvard University Press, 2012), History: Review of New Books 42, no. 1 (2014): 30-31.

Vikrama Cholan Ulaa by Ottakkuthar, (Tamil) trans. with Kausalya Hart (Dhwani Books, 2003).

Public-facing scholarship
Gita V. Pai in Desi Dynamos: Stories of Indian-American Trailblazers S1: E5, interview by Dr. Meenakshi Anantram, The Meenamma Show, November 1, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aKzDWvLE7c.

Gita V. Pai on the Minakshi Temple, Madurai, India in documentary Monuments Sacrés: Temples d’Asie: Les hommes, la nature et les dieux (Sacred Spaces-Temples of Asia: Humans, Nature, and Gods), directed by Véronique Legendre (ARTE France and ZED, 2018/CuriosityStream, 2019). on location photo promo trailer