Prof. Dr. Thibaut D'Hubert
Substitute professor
Classical Indology
Office address:
Ludwigstraße 31
Room 432
80539 München
Office hours:
By appointment
Postal address:
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
Main Research and Teaching Interests
- Indo-Persian and Bengali literature
- Textual criticism
- Poetics
- Traditional commentaries on literary texts (Sanskrit, Persian)
- Poetics of vernacular languages
Curriculum Vitae
- Academic positions
2025-2026 Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter (Research associate), Department für Asienstudien; Institut für Indologie und Tibetologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München
2018-2025 Associate professor, Bengali language and Bengal studies, South Asian Languages and Civilizations (SALC), the University of Chicago
2010-2018 Assistant professor, Bengali language and Bengal studies, South Asian Languages and Civilizations (SALC), the University of Chicago
2013-2014 Fellow of the program Zukunftsphilologie, Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin
2008-2009 Lecturer, Department of South Asian Studies, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, INALCO, Paris
2007-2008 Lecturer, Department of South Asian Studies, INALCO, Paris
2003-2004 Lecturer, French Department, Central Institute for English and Foreign Languages (CIEFL), Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
- Research affiliations and projects
2012-2014 PI with Alexandre Papas (CNRS/CETOBAC) of the project A Worldwide Literature: Jāmī (1414-1492) in the Dār al-Islām and Beyond, international conference, a Neubauer Collegium research initiative, The University of Chicago
- Academic qualifications
2005-2010 PhD École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), 4th section, Historical and Philological Sciences (SHP), Paris. Thesis title: “Poetics of Translation and Cultural History: Alaol and the Bengali Literary Tradition in Seventeenth-Century Mrauk-U, Capital of the Kingdom of Arakan (Myanmar)” (in French)
2005-2006 B.A. (Licence) in Sanskrit and Indian Studies, University Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris
2004-2005 MPhil in Advanced Asian Studies (DEA en Hautes Études Asiatiques), EPHE, 4th section, SHP, Paris. Thesis title: “Indo-Persian Culture and Medieval Bengali Literature: questions around Alaol’s (1607-1680) art poétique” (in French); with Honors
2004-2005 Second year of Unilingual Diploma of Oriental Languages and Civilizations, (DULCO), in Persian, (INALCO), Paris
2003-2004 M.A. in Bengali, INALCO, Paris. Thesis title: “A Study of Secondary Narratives in the Âdikânda of Krittibâsa’s Râmâyana” (in French); with Honors
2004-2005 Certificate in Sanskrit, Central Institute for English and Foreign Languages, (CIEFL), Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
2000-2003 B.A. in Bengali Language, INALCO, Paris
Publications
Monographs
In the Shade of the Golden Palace: Ālāol and Middle Bengali Poetics in Arakan. South Asia Research Series. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018; New Delhi: OUP South Asia edition, 2019.
Meaningful Rituals: Persian, Arabic and Bengali in the Nūrnāma Tradition of Eastern Bengal. Delhi: Primus Books, 2022.
Volume
with Alexandre Papas, eds. Jāmī in Regional Contexts: The Reception of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī’s Works in the Islamicate World, ca. 9th/15th-14th/20th. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 The Near and Middle East. Leiden: Brill, 2019. Paperback, 2023.
Articles and book chapters
1. “A Good Man, not so Good: Courtly Ethics in Vidyāpati’s Argumentative Lyric Poems.” In Praśasti: Studies in Indology Presented to Nalini Balbir by Colleagues, Students and Friends. Dir. Georges-Jean Pinault et Jérôme Petit. Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis, 191–208. Halle : Universitätverlag Halle-Wittenberg, 2025.
2. “Multilingual Pre-Modern Bengal.” In The Indians: Histories of a Civilization, edited by G. N. Devy, Tony Joseph, and Ravi Korisettar, 359–63. New Delhi: Aleph Book Company, 2023.
3. with Alexey Kirichenko, D. Christian Lammerts, and Aleix Ruiz-Falqués. “A Faultless Science: Dandin and Dharmadasa in Burma and Bengal.” In A Lasting Vision: Dandin’s Mirror in the World of Asian Letters. Edited by Yigal Bronner, 362–411. South Asia Research Series. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023.
4. “Homecoming: The Journey Back to India of Kalīla wa-Dimna.” In L’adab toujours recommencé. Origines, transmission et métamorphoses. Ed. Francesca Bellino, Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, Luca Patrizi, 428-456. Leiden: Brill, 2023.
5. with Christoph Emmrich, Joseph McQuade, and Sana Aiyar. “Towards a Burma-Inclusive South Asian Studies: A Roundtable.” Edited by McQuade Joseph. Modern Asian Studies, May 18, 2022, 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X21000718
6. “‘If I’m Reading You Right: Reading Bodies, Minds, And Poetry in Life of Naishadha.’” In Sensitive Reading: The Pleasures of South Asian Literature in Translation, edited by Yigal Bronner and Charles Hallisey, 31–35. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2022. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520384477/sensitive-reading
7. “Deśi vacaner vismr̥ta pāṭh: Ārabi haraphe likhita bāṃlā pāṇḍulipi.” (The Forgotten texts of the regional tongue: Bengali Manuscripts in Arabic script), trans. Nurunnabi Shanto and Th. d’Hubert, Bāvanagara 12, no. 13-14 (June-December 2020).
8. “Bengali Literature of Arakan.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, July 2020. https://oxfordre.com/asianhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277727-e-430
9. Review: “Mughal Arcadia: Persian Literature in an Indian Court.” Iranian Studies 53 (May 5, 2020): 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1080/00210862.2020.1750264.
10. “Chézy et l’étude du sanskrit à partir de manuscrits en caractères bengalis,” in Le sanctuaire dévoilé. Antoine-Léonard Chézy et les débuts des études sanskrites en Europe 1800-1850, edited by Jérôme Petit and Pascale Rabault-Feuerhahn, Paris: Geuthner ; Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2019.
11. “Persian at the Court or in the Village? The Elusive presence of Persian in Bengal.” In The Persianate World: The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca, edited by Nile Green. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300927/the-persianate-world
12. “‘India Beyond the Ganges’: Defining Arakanese Buddhism in Persianate Colonial Bengal.” Indian Economic & Social History Review 56, no. 1 (March, 2019). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0019464618817371
13. “Foundational Mahabbat-nāmas: The Reception of Jāmī’s Yūsuf u Zulaykhā in Bengal (ca. 16th-19th).” In Jāmī in Regional Contexts: The Reception of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī’s Works in the Islamicate World, ca. 9th/15th-14th/20th. Edited by Thibaut d’Hubert and Alexandre Papas. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 The Near and Middle East. Leiden. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
14. “Living in Marvelous Lands: Persianate Vernacular Literatures and Cosmographical Imaginaires around the Bay of Bengal.” In The Persianate World: Rethinking a Shared Sphere, Edited by Abbas Amanat and Assef Ashraf.Iran Studies 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2019). https://brill.com/view/title/39353
15. “A Persian Account of the Religious Customs of the Magh (Arakanese) from Early Colonial Bengal.” Iranian Studies 51 (October 2, 2018): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/00210862.2018.1520572.
16. with Muzaffar Alam, “Mufarriḥ al-qulūb,” Perso-Indica. An Analytical Survey of Persian Works on Indian Learned Traditions, edited by F. Speziale and C. W. Ernst, 2018. Available at: http://perso-indica.net/work/mufarrih_al-qulub
17. “Literary History of Bengal, 8th to 19th century.” In the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Ed. David Ludden. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. http://asianhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277727-e-39?rskey=zOm0lk&result=1
18. “The Lord of the Elephant: Interpreting the Islamicate Epigraphic, Numismatic and Literary Material from the Mrauk U Period of Arakan (ca. 1430−1784).” Journal of Burma Studies 19, no. 2 (2015): 341–70.
19. “Patterns of Composition in the Seventeenth-Century Bengali Literature of Arakan.” In Tellings and Texts: Music, Literature and Performance Cultures in North India, edited by Francesca Orsini and Katherin Brown, 423–43. Cambridge: Open Books Publishers, 2015.
20. “Arākān aur janūb-i mashriqī Bangāla-desh mẽ musulmānõ kī tahdhīb aur zabānẽ.” (Muslim Literary Culture in Arakan and Southeastern Bangladesh). Translated by Timsal Masud. Maʿārif 194 (2014): 265–88.
21. “‘Bhāṅgiẏā kahile tāhe āche bahuras’: Madhyayuger kavi Ālāoler anuvād-paddhati.” (“If one Breaks It, He will Obtain Much rasa”: The Translation Techniques of the Medieval Poet Ālāol). Bhāvnagar 1 (April 2014): 59–76.
22. “La diffusion et l’usage des manuscrits bengalis dans l’est du Bengale, XVIIe-XXe siècles.” Edited by Maria Szuppe and Nalini Balbir. Eurasian Studies, Special Issue: Lecteurs et copistes dans les traditions manuscrites iraniennes, indiennes et centrasiatiques ; Scribes and Readers in Iranian, Indian and Central Asian manuscript traditions 12 (2014): 325–60.
23. “Pirates, Poets, and Merchants: Bengali Language and Literature in Seventeenth-Century Mrauk-U.” In Culture and Circulation: Literature in Motion in Early Modern India, edited by Thomas de Bruijn and Allison Busch, 47–74. Brill’s Indological Library 46. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
24. “Bayān-i ‘ibādat-i mukh-hā ba-nām-i Takādībā,” Perso-Indica. An Analytical Survey of Persian Works on Indian Learned Traditions, edited by F.Speziale - C. W. Ernst. 2013. Available at http://www.perso-indica.net/work.faces?idw=111.
25. “Bengal, Poetry of.” In The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, edited by Roland Greene, 4th ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.
26. with Jacques P. Leider. “Traders and Poets at the Mrauk U Court: On Commerce and Cultural Links in Seventeenth-Century Arakan.” In Pelagic Passageways: Dynamic Flows in the Northern Bay of Bengal World before the Appearance of Nation States, edited by Rila Mukherjee, 345–79. New Delhi: Primus Books, 2011.
27. “Bengali Literature”; “ʿAbd al-Ḥakīm”; “Ālāol/ʿAlāwal”; “Dobhāshī”; “Ḥayāt Maḥmūd”; “Sylhet Nagari”; “Sayyid Sulṭān” Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. Edited by Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas and Everett Rowson. Leiden: Brill, 2010-2015.
28. with Paul Wormser. “Représentations du monde dans le golfe du Bengale au xviie siècle: Ālāol et Rānīrī.” Archipel 76 (2008): 15–35.
29. “Le prince devenu esclave: l’histoire de Harishchandra dans le Râmâyana bengali.” Synergies 2 (2007): 217–30.
30. “La réception d’un succès littéraire persan dans les campagnes du Bengale: une traduction de Jāmī par le poète Ābdul Hākim.” Bulletin d’Études Indiennes 24–25 (2006-2007): 121–38.