 | Dr. Shiv Subramaniam (Emory University, Book 1: Bāla) is Assistant Professor of Religion at Emory University. His research focuses on the reception of South Asia’s premodern literary traditions, as reflected in his current book-project titled Poetry’s Afterthought: Kālidāsa and the Experience of Reading. Much of his writing examines South Indian religious authors of the early second millennium—that is, authors belonging to the same milieu as Kampaṉ. As a trained Carnatic vocalist as well as an academic, he regularly performs Kampaṉ’s poetry in concert. Subramaniam joined the Kampaṉ team in 2019 to translate “Bāla Kāṇṭam,” the first volume of the series. You can read a sample of his translation here. |
 | Prof. David Shulman (Hebrew University, Book 2: Ayodhyā) is a translator from classical and modern Tamil, Telugu, and Sanskrit, with many published volumes of translations to his name. He has also published extensively on Kampaṉ’s Rāmāyaṇa. You can read a sample translation of his here. |
 | Prof. Whitney Cox (University of Chicago, Book 3: Araṇya) is Professor in the Department of South Asian Language and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. He is a specialist in both Sanskrit and Tamil, evident in his major publications, Politics, Kingship, and Poetry in Medieval South India: Moonset on Sunrise Mountain (2016) and Modes of philology in medieval South India (2017). As a historian as well as a scholar of language and literature, the Kampaṉ project connects with Cox’s ongoing research into the culture and society of the twelfth century Tamil country. Cox joined the Kampaṉ team in 2017 as the translator of the third volume, the “Āraṇya Kāṇṭam.” You can read a sample translation of his here. |
 | Dr. Jennifer Clare (Independent Scholar, Book 4: Kiṣkindhā) is a writer, teacher and translator who lives and works in San Francisco. She has been involved in research on Tamil literature and intellectual history for over fifteen years, with publications on various genres and periods of Tamil literature. During that time, she has also taught Tamil literature and culture at the undergraduate and graduate level. As a translator, Jennifer has worked with Tamil material in a range of genres, including lyric, prose, and multi-stanzaic poetry. Her current projects include a book on wordplay on Tamil, as well as a project on anger and language. You can read a sample translation of hers here. |
 | Prof. Archana Venkatesan (UC Davis, Book 5: Sundara) is Professor of Religious Studies and Comparative Literature at UC Davis. Her expertise is in the Tamil devotional tradition. She has published three books of translations, including most recently, the monumental 1103-verse Tiruvāymoḻi of Nammāḻvār (Penguin 2020), which one the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize from the American Literary Translators Association (2021) and the AK Ramanujan Translation Prize (2022) from the Association of Asian Studies. You can read a sample translation of hers here. |
 | Dr. Aniruddhan Vasudevan (Princeton University, Book 6: Yuddha, Part 2) was a Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow (2020-2023) at the Princeton Society of Fellows and is currently a Lecturer in the Anthropology Department at Princeton University. He is also a translator of literary works from Tamil to English and has published translations of celebrated Tamil authors Perumal Murugan and Ambai (C.S. Lakshmi) in English. Vasudevan's translations of Perumal Murugan's novels One Part Woman (2013), Pyre (2016), A Lonely Harvest (2018) and Trial by Silence (2018) have received critical acclaim, literary awards, and award nominations. As a native Tamil speaker and translator, anthropologist of Tamil religious lifeworlds, and a lover of medieval Tamil poetry, being a part of the Kampaṉ project speaks to several of Vasudevan's intellectual interests and commitments. Vasudevan joined the Kampaṉ team in 2020 as the translator of the second half of the last canto of Kampaṉ's epic, the Yuddha Kāṇṭam. You can read a sample translation of his here. |