Prof. David Shulman

David Dean Shulman is an Indologist whose research spans across the history of religion in South India, Indian poetics, Tamil Islam, Dravidian linguistics, and Carnatic music. He is also a published poet in Hebrew, a literary critic, a cultural anthropologist who has authored or co-authored more than 20 books embracing various subjects ranging from temple myths and poems to essays on the cultural history of South India. Some of his work includes: More than Real: A History of the Imagination in South India (Harvard University Press, 2012); and Tamil: A Biography (Harvard University Press, 2016).

He graduated from the Hebrew University in 1971 with a B.A. degree in Islamic History followed by a Doctorate in Tamil and Sanskrit, with a dissertation on 'The Mythology of the Tamil Saiva Talapuranam', at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1976.

His prior appointments include: Lecturer in the department of Indian Studies and Comparative Religion at Hebrew University; MacArthur Fellow (1987 to 1992); Elected member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities (1988); Director of the Jerusalem Institute of Advanced Studies for six years (1992–1998).

Prof. Shulman’s list of Awards include MacArthur Fellowship (1987), Rothschild Prize (2004), The EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture (2010), The Israel Prize (2016) for his research on the literature and culture of southern India.