Email: k-okita[at]sophia.ac.jp
Tel: 03-3238-4036
Office: 10-649

Love, hatred, and jealousy – I am interested in understanding powerful emotions and how they are expressed in various art forms, such as drama, poetry, and song. Academically, my research explores classical Indian theories of aesthetic experience and their engagement with Hindu devotional traditions in the early modern period (fifteenth ~ eighteenth centuries). I also work on the discipline of Hindu theology (Vedānta), which deals with the nature of reality, the means of knowledge, and the ways to achieve liberation. In terms of teaching, I teach courses on the history of classical Indian poetics, the history of Indian intellectual traditions, and classical Indian literature. I also teach a course on the concept of ‘religion’ and its impact in Japan.

Books
・Co-edited with Rembert Lutjeharms. 2024. The Building of Vṛndāvana: Architecture, Theology, and Practice in an Early Modern Pilgrimage Town. Brill’s Indological Library, Volume: 57. (Leiden/Boston: Brill)
・2014, Hindu Theology in Early Modern South Asia: The Rise of Devotionalism and the Politics of Genealogy (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Journal Articles
・2021. “A Genealogy of Divine Paramour: Rūpa Gosvāmī’ Ujjvalanīlamaṇi in the History of Sanskrit Dramaturgy and Literary Criticism”, Journal of Vaishnava Studies, 30: 1, 225-244.
・2021. “The Theology of the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Sampradāya: Six Distinctive Features”, Journal of Vaishnava Studies, 29: 2, 5-24.
・2021. “Śleṣa Readings on Bhāgavatapurāṇa 1.1.1: Śrīnātha Cakravartī’s Caitanyamatamañjuṣā Commentary”, The Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, 69: 3, 979-985.
・2020 “Rejecting Monism: Dvaita Vedānta’s Engagement with the Bhāgavatapurāṇa”, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 48: 3, 447-465.
・2020 “The Authorship of the Commentary on Vopadeva’s Harilīlā”, The Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, 68: 3, 1107-1113.
・2019 “Bitextuality in Bhāgavata Purāṇa” X.29. The Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, 66: 3, 1043-1048.
・2018 “Ethics and Aesthetics in Early Modern South Asia: A Controversy surrounding the Bhāgavata Purāṇa Book X”, International Journal of Hindu Studies, Special Issue, Translating the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, ed. by Anand Mishra and Monika Horstmann, 22: 1, 25-43.
・2017 “From Rasa to Bhaktirasa: The Development of A Devotional Aesthetic Theory in Early Modern South Asia”, The Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, 65: 3, 1066-1072.
・2016 “A Vedāntic Refutation of Buddhism in Eighteenth Century North India: The Tattvadīpikā of Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa”, Journal of Vaishnava Studies, 25:1, 153-162.
・2016 “The Influence of Śiṅgabhūpāla II on Bengali Vaiṣṇava Aesthetics”, The Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, 64, 1081-1087.
Book Chapters
・2019 “Divine Transgression: Devotion and Ethics in Bengali Vaiṣṇavism”, The Legacy of Vaisnavism in Colonial Bengal ed. by Lucian Wong and Ferdinando Sardella (Oxford: Routledge), pp. 212-232.
・2019 “Singing in Protest: Early Modern Hindu-Muslim Encounters in Bengali Hagiographies of Chaitanya”, Bhakti and Power: Debating India’s Religion of the Heart ed. by John Stratton Hawley, Swapna Sharma, and Christian Lee Novetzke (Seattle: The University of Washington Press), pp. 159-170.
・2017 “Salvation through Colorful Emotions: Aesthetics, Colorimetry, and Theology in Early Modern South Asia”, Historicizing Emotions: Practices and Objects in India, China, and Japan. ed. by Barbara Schuler (Brill), pp. 100-112.
・2017 “Quotation, Quarrel and Controversy in Early Modern South Asia: Appayya Dīkṣita and Jīva Gosvāmī on Madhva’s Untraceable Citations”, Adaptive Reuse in South Asian Literatures and Artseds. by Elisa Freschi and Philipp Maas, Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag), pp.255-280.
・2014 “The Bhāgavata Purāṇa in Four Verses: Jīva Gosvāmī’s Kramasandarbha” Ravi M. Gupta (ed.) Caitanya Vaisnava Philosophy: Tradition, Reason and Devotion(Farnham:Ashgate), pp. 61-66.

Faculty of Liberal Arts

Graduate Program in Global Studies