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Copyright by Aniruddhan Vasudevan 2020 The Dissertation Committee for Aniruddhan Vasudevan certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Between the Goddess and the World: Religion and Ethics among Thirunangai transwomen in Chennai, India Committee: _______________________________ Kamran Asdar Ali, Supervisor _______________________________ Elizabeth Keating _______________________________ Kathleen Stewart ________________________________ Courtney Handman ________________________________ Martha Ann Selby ________________________________ Svati P. Shah Between the Goddess and the World: Religion and Ethics among Thirunangai Transwomen in Chennai, India by Aniruddhan Vasudevan Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2020 For Sankari Acknowledgements I thank my Amma and Appa, Janaki Vasudevan and Dr. K. S. Vasudevan, for their faith and pride in me and for their constant support, blessings, and guidance. I thank my husband Krzysztof Wargan for being excited about my research, for always listening to me when I talk about my work, and for reading many of the chapters, asking questions, and offering feedback. I thank my dear friend Sankari, without whom this dissertation would not have been possible. And I am hugely indebted to Sowmiya, Kaavya, Dhanalakshmi, Vasantha, Maya, Maheswari, Anandhi, Kili, Renuka, Rajini, Sulochana, Anbu, Keerthana, Ajitha, Preethi, and Shakthi for their friendship, company, love, and their enthusiasm about my research. In Prof. Kamran Asdar Ali, I found the best mentor and guide I could have wished for. Not only has Kamran been an engaged adviser for my dissertation research, he has also been a very caring mentor, concerned not only with my academic performance but my overall wellbeing. I have been most fortunate in getting to work with him. I cannot thank him enough for reading multiple drafts of my dissertation chapters as well as the various applications. Prof. Elizabeth Keating allowed me to invade her office hours several times and was incredibly generous with her time over emails and in person. I will cherish the many conversations I have had with her – not only about my project but also about anthropology in general, language, teaching, poetry, writing, and much more. Elizabeth’s comments on various chapter drafts and other pieces of writing have been most valuable. Being in Prof. Courtney Handman’s graduate seminar on religion, materiality, and media (Fall 2015) was a pivotal experience for me. I did not anticipate then that my research would take a turn towards studying religion and devotion, but my inclination and ability to pay close attention to these aspects of thirunangai life were forged in that graduate seminar. Courtney has been very generous with her time, offering mentorship and support and pushing me to think beyond whatever analytical frames I become fascinated with from time to time. I thank Prof. Kathleen Stewart for teaching me how to pay attention to the ordinary and why it is important to do so. Without that awareness, I would have focused primarily on the spectacular aspects of thirunangai devotion to Angalamman and less (or perhaps not at all) on the mundane webs of relationships, transactions, and forms of care that are woven around the Thirunangai-Angalamman attachment and which happen quietly as the very stuff and routine of life. v One of the greatest joys of my graduate life at UT Austin has been the opportunity to work with Prof. Martha Ann Selby. Not only did I gain immensely from her experience as a scholar of Tamil language, literature, and translation, I also had the pleasure of working as her teaching assistant for an undergraduate class on goddess traditions across the world. I am deeply indebted to Martha’s mentorship, care, and expectation of rigor and discipline. I thank Prof. Svati P. Shah (Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies) for her friendship and guidance and for serving on my dissertation committee. Prof. Mathangi Krishnamurthy at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, served as my fieldwork supervisor in 2016-2017. It is a rare fortune to be able to discuss the immediate impressions and insights of fieldwork with someone who at once understands the regional context deeply and also brings a scholarly diligence to her attention. Mathangi’s mentorship and friendship made my research experience most meaningful. My thanks to V. Geetha for the many conversations, poetry-reading sessions, and her friendship that means the world to me. I thank Professor Elaine Craddock (Department of Religion, Southwestern University) for her articles on Angalamman and thirunangais, for the many conversations about the goddess, and for being excited about my work. I thank professors Ward Keeler, Suzanne Seriff, James Slotta, Jason Cons, Circe Strum, Charles Hale, Pauline Strong, Rebecca Lewis, Anthony Webster, Simone Browne, Heather Hindman, Sharmila Rudrappa, and Indrani Chatterjee for their care, time, and encouragement over the years. Dr. Mary Rader, South Asia Librarian at UT Austin, helped me access resources and cheered me on during times of self-doubt. Adriana Dingman, Catherine Schreiner, Christopher McNett, Thomas Fawcett, and William O’leary in the anthropology department office for all their assistance and good cheer. I also thank Chaz Nailor and Rolee Rios for all their help during their time in the department. Rachel Meyer and Scott Webel at the South Asia Institute, UT Austin, have been wonderful in their support and assistance with grants, fellowships, and events. My dissertation research was made possible by the Joseph Elder College Year in India - Junior Research Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies. Marion Jemmott Fellowship from the Taraknath Das Foundation, the UT Austin Graduate School Dean’s Prestigious Supplemental Grant, the Graduate School Continuing Fellowship, and the Dravidian vi Award and Aggarwal Fellowship from the South Asia Institute, UT Austin, made research and writing possible. I thank my friends: Anusha Hariharan, Deina Rabie, Ece Saltan, Christina Gonzalez, Lia Morgan Siewert, Lakshmi Sriraman, Gowthaman Ranganathan, Murali Erat, Surabi Veeraragavan, Ramki L. Ramakrishnan, Sameer Ghunakikar, Rashmi Vasudevan, Alice Brooke Wilson, Tom Philpott, Bharat Venkat, Shakthi Nataraj, Kiran Ahmed, Sardar Hussain, Kelsie Gillig, Alex Kreger, Krishantha Federicks, Rupali Warke, Daniel Dillon, Andrea Gutierrez, Vrinda Marwah, Upasana Garnaik, Hannah Foster, Sabrina Lilleby, Kenza Yousfi, Bradley Graupner, Sarah Eleazar, Samuel Law, Daniel Ng, and Ana Maria Navas Mendez. My sister Smitha, brother-in-law Kannan, and niece Manasvini for the constancy of their love. My deepest gratitude to the thirunangai-maruladis whose lives, love, words, and wisdom animate this text. I am indebted to my thirunangai friends and elders and to goddess Angalamman for weaving me into a rich tapestry of love and care. --- vii Between the Goddess and the World: Religion and Ethics among Thirunangai Transwomen in Chennai, India Aniruddhan Vasudevan, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2020 Supervisor: Kamran Asdar Ali This dissertation is an ethnographic study of the place of goddess Angalamman in the Thirunangai transfeminine lifeworld in the city of Chennai in southern India. It offers a detailed account of two interrelated aspects of the Thirunangai-Goddess attachment: the role Angalamman plays in anchoring transfeminine identity and the ethical entailments this intimate connection to a deity has for thirunangais. The intertwined poetics of identity and ethical relationality is the focus of this dissertation. It argues that thirunangais’ attachment to goddess Angalamman goes far beyond offering “sacred legitimization” to transfeminine identity; their connection to the goddess is a significant locus of ethical life for thirunangais. My research focuses on the lives of those thirunangais who express an intense connection to goddess Angalamman, and it demonstrates that this connection comes to have a bearing on ethical questions: how to show up for others, how to care, what are desirable ways to act, how to respond to injustice, and more. Through an analysis of thirunangai accounts of their first encounters with the goddess, I show how this connection to Angalamman is not a matter of private spirituality for thirunangais, but one firmly grounded in the recognition, validation, and wellbeing of the immediate world around them. Thirunangais claim a specialness to their connection to Angalamman; they do so both by reading thirunangai identity as shaped by the goddess and by reading the goddess as a viii transgender deity. They also address questions of sex, sex work, and sexual morality in reltation to a life devoted to the goddess. In addition to offering detailed accounts of such complex articulations of selfhood and morality, this dissertation also presents an ethnographic account of anger as an embodied ethical emotion in thirunangai life. Thirunangais do not highlight the sacred- spiritual aspects of their lives in their activism for rights. They have articulated thirunangai identity as a broadly secular social and political identity. But in the context of everyday lives for many thirunangais, devotional practices are important sites of collective ethical life, purpose, and belonging. By taking