Deep Cosmopolitanism
Kutiyattam, Dynamic Tradition, and Globalizing Heritage in Kerala, India
Published on 2. September 2025
Book
Hardback
364 pages
978-0-253-07358-7 (ISBN)
Description
Deep Cosmopolitanism explores the extraordinary past and present of Kutiyattam Sanskrit theater, the world's oldest continuously performed theater. Recognized as India's first UNESCO intangible cultural heritage of humanity, the matrilineal temple art of Kutiyattam has been performed by men and women in Kerala, India, since the tenth century C.E.
Deep Cosmopolitanism illustrates how Kutiyattam Sanskrit theater has encountered multiple forms of cosmopolitanism over the course of its thousand-year history. Exploring how Kutiyattam artists create meaning out of their deep past through everyday narratives and reflections, author Leah Lowthorp traces the art's cosmopolitan encounters over time, from the premodern Sanskrit cosmopolis to Muslim sultans, British colonialists, Communist politics, and UNESCO intangible cultural heritage. In so doing, Lowthorp fundamentally rethinks the notion of cosmopolitanism from a non-Western perspective with premodern roots and offers a critique of the colonialist undertones of how international heritage organizations like UNESCO conceptualize peoples and traditions around the world.
Diving into an ethnographic exploration that considers Kutiyattam's multiple cosmopolitanisms over a period of one thousand years, Deep Cosmopolitanism offers a model for decolonizing modernity and challenges us to rethink what it means to be cosmopolitan, traditional, and modern in the world today.
Deep Cosmopolitanism illustrates how Kutiyattam Sanskrit theater has encountered multiple forms of cosmopolitanism over the course of its thousand-year history. Exploring how Kutiyattam artists create meaning out of their deep past through everyday narratives and reflections, author Leah Lowthorp traces the art's cosmopolitan encounters over time, from the premodern Sanskrit cosmopolis to Muslim sultans, British colonialists, Communist politics, and UNESCO intangible cultural heritage. In so doing, Lowthorp fundamentally rethinks the notion of cosmopolitanism from a non-Western perspective with premodern roots and offers a critique of the colonialist undertones of how international heritage organizations like UNESCO conceptualize peoples and traditions around the world.
Diving into an ethnographic exploration that considers Kutiyattam's multiple cosmopolitanisms over a period of one thousand years, Deep Cosmopolitanism offers a model for decolonizing modernity and challenges us to rethink what it means to be cosmopolitan, traditional, and modern in the world today.
Reviews / Votes
"This brilliant and beautifully written book invites us to rethink what it means to be modern, traditional, and cosmopolitan. Insightful and engaging, it offers a compelling ethnographic exploration of the world's oldest theater from the crossroads of anthropology, folklore, performance studies and critical heritage. With depth and subtlety, Leah Lowthorp challenges colonialist binaries as she convincingly decolonizes the notion of cultural heritage."-Valdimar Tr. Hafstein, author of Making Intangible Heritage"Through her combined ethnography and history of Kerala's Kutiyattam, Leah Lowthorp shows UNESCO's modernist and nation-transcending "heritage of humanity" to be but a short episode within a far deeper, variegated, and ongoing temporal sequence of cosmopolitan positionalities."-Regina F. Bendix, author of Culture and Value: Tourism, Heritage, and Property
"A very local and ancient tradition of Indian classical theater meets a very global and very modern form of the cultural heritage industry, all mediated by a neonationalist Hindu state-with unanticipated and often transformative consequences. Lowthorp's study of the interactions of Kutiyattam, UNESCO, and Modi's India combines thick description with smart conceptualization, and makes a really valuable contribution to cultural and social theory, folkloristics, and the history of this extraordinary art form."-Sheldon Pollock, author of The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India
"Leah Lowthorp's book weaves together various disciplines, theories, and methods, achieving two main goals: Firstly, it contributes to the existing, mostly Indological works on Kerala's age-old Kuiyaam Sanskrit theatre by presenting new perspectives through the lens of an ethnographer. Secondly, she aims to decolonize global heritage by rejecting UNESCO's claim to universality and its policy of transforming the supposedly endangered local into the protected global. The book expands our understanding of Kuiyaam as well as deep cosmopolitanism and is a must-read for anyone interested in theatre studies, as well as for those seeking to reassess the concepts of 'tradition' and 'modernity.'"-Heike Oberlin, University of Tuebingen, Germany
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Bloomington, IN
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
50 color illus.
Dimensions
Height: 161 mm
Width: 237 mm
Thickness: 34 mm
Weight
794 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-253-07358-7 (9780253073587)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Leah Lowthorp
Deep Cosmopolitanism
Kutiyattam, Dynamic Tradition, and Globalizing Heritage in Kerala, India
E-Book
09/2025
Indiana University Press
€38.99
Available for download
Person
Leah Lowthorp is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Folklore at the University of Oregon. She is editor (with Frank J. Korom) of South Asian Folklore in Transition: Crafting New Horizons (Routledge, 2019).
Content
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Getting into the Kutiyattam Body
2. Contemporary Kutiyattam
3. The Sanskrit Cosmopolis and Embodied Cosmopolitanism
4. Kings, Sultans, and Colonialists: Legendary Circulation and Encounters with the Other
5. Kerala, Communism, and Heritage: Reinventing Tradition at Kerala Kalamandalam
6. Claiming a Cosmopolis: Sanskritic Culture and Indian National Heritage
7. Kutiyattam as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: Politics, Aftermath, and Community Perspectives
Epilogue
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Note on Transliteration
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Getting into the Kutiyattam Body
2. Contemporary Kutiyattam
3. The Sanskrit Cosmopolis and Embodied Cosmopolitanism
4. Kings, Sultans, and Colonialists: Legendary Circulation and Encounters with the Other
5. Kerala, Communism, and Heritage: Reinventing Tradition at Kerala Kalamandalam
6. Claiming a Cosmopolis: Sanskritic Culture and Indian National Heritage
7. Kutiyattam as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: Politics, Aftermath, and Community Perspectives
Epilogue
Glossary
Bibliography
Index