Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been awarded the 2020 Callaway Prize for the Best Book on Drama and Theatre. The Callaway Prize, which carries a cash award of $9,000, is given by the department of English at New York University for the best book on drama or theatre published during the previous two years by an American author. The 2020 award was delayed until this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Professor Dharwadker was honored for editing the book A Poetics of Modernity: Indian Theatre Theory, 1850 to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2019). “A Poetics of Modernity assembles and makes accessible, to readers of English, a multi-lingual archive vital to understanding the rich history of modern Indian theory,” says Una Chaudhuri, a New York University professor who chaired the judging panel. “The judges wish to celebrate and honor the enormous collaborative labor the volume represents, as well as the valuable work of its many contributors. We welcome the book’s potential for expanding the study of modern performance theory beyond European and American sources.”
Dr. Dharwadker is the first multiple winner of the Callaway Prize. She also won the award in 2006 for Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory and Urban Performance in India since 1947 (University of Iowa Press, 2005).
Professor Dharwadker is a graduate of the University of Rajasthan in Jaipur, India. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Delhi and a Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University.