Andrew Ollett

Andrew Ollett is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 2019. His research focuses on the literary and intellectual traditions of South and Southeast Asia, particularly through works in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsha, and Kannada from the first millennium CE.

• Co-founder and editor of NESAR (New Explorations in South Asia Research)
• Director of NEH-funded edition/translation of the Kavirājamārga (earliest Kannada literary manual)
• Expert in Prakrit and Kannada literary traditions

His work explores the 'question of language'—examining how language choice shaped cultural production and change in premodern India. Current projects include a monograph on context-sensitivity in Indian language theories and a study of manuscript technology's impact on early South Asian knowledge communities. He has authored The Mirror of Ornaments (Naples: Unior Press, 2025) and Language of the Snakes (UC Press, 2017), and co-authored Lilavai (Harvard, 2021).

Recent publications include interdisciplinary studies on:

• Sanskrit-Prakrit campū genre reevaluation
• Pragmatics in Mīmāṁsā interpretive concepts
• Manuscript literacy's influence on literary forms
• Historical linguistics of Middle Indic syllable reduction
• Philosophy of language in Śālikanātha and Kumārila Bhaṭṭa

Awarded the NEH 'Scholarly Editions and Translations' grant, he teaches classical South Asian literature courses covering Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Tamil traditions. He maintains digital resources including a Prakrit Digital Texts Project and Mīmāṁsādigdarśinī digital text repository, and actively contributes to open-access scholarship.