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{{Short description|Indian historian}}
{{Orphan|date=December 2024}}

{{Use Indian English|date=November 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2024}}
{{Infobox academic
| occupation = Historian
| awards = [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] (2023)
| alma_mater = {{ublist|
* [[Osmania University]]
* [[University of Hyderabad]]
* [[Kansas State University]]
* [[University of Pennsylvania]]
}}
| thesis_title = Scripture and strategy: narrative and the poetics of appropriate conduct in Śṛingeri, South India
| thesis_year = 1998
| discipline = History
| sub_discipline = {{flatlist|
* Anthropology of ethics
* Indian history
}}
| workplaces = {{flatlist|
* [[Duke University]]
* [[Brown University]]
}}
}}
'''Leela Prasad''' is an Indian historian based in the United States. A scholar of Indian history and the anthropology of ethics, she is a 2023 [[Guggenheim Fellow]] and is St. Purandar Das Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at [[Brown University]].<ref name="vivo.brown">{{Cite web |title=Prasad, Leela |url=https://vivo.brown.edu/display/lprasad |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=vivo.brown.edu |archive-date=9 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241009223934/https://vivo.brown.edu/display/lprasad |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Biography==
She obtained her BA at [[Osmania University]] in 1986, her MAs at [[University of Hyderabad]] in 1988 and at [[Kansas State University]] in 1991, and her PhD in Folklore and Folklife at [[University of Pennsylvania]] in 1998;<ref name="vivo.brown"/> her doctoral dissertation was ''Scripture and strategy: narrative and the poetics of appropriate conduct in [[Sringeri|Śṛingeri]], South India''.<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Prasad |first=Leela |title=Scripture and strategy : narrative and the poetics of appropriate conduct in Śṛingeri, South India |date=1998 |degree=PhD |publisher=University of Pennsylvania |oclc=187470803}}</ref> In 1999, she started working at [[Duke University]] as Assistant Professor of Religion at the Department of Religious Studies, and he was an Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor from 2002 to 2003.<ref name="scholars.duke">{{Cite web |title=Leela Prasad |url=https://scholars.duke.edu/display/per4200462 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230617212802/https://scholars.duke.edu/display/per4200462 |archive-date=2023-06-17 |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=Scholars@Duke}}</ref> She became an associate professor in 2007,<ref name="scholars.duke" /> and In 2020, she became a full professor.<ref name="wiareport"/> She also held an associate professorship at Duke's Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies from 2013 to 2015.<ref name="scholars.duke" /> In 2024, she moved from Duke to the [[Brown University]] Department of Religious Studies.<ref name="vivo.brown"/>

As an academic, Prasad specialises in the anthropology of ethics, early Indic philology, history of India, and oral history.<ref name="vivo.brown"/> She curated a [[Historical Society of Pennsylvania]] exhibition on the history of the [[South Asian Americans]] in the [[Delaware Valley]], and she subsequently edited a tie-in 1999 volume ''Live Like the Banyan Tree''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Live Like the Banyan Tree {{!}} Religious Studies |url=https://religiousstudies.duke.edu/books/live-banyan-tree |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=religiousstudies.duke.edu}}</ref> In 2006, she worked on two books: as co-editor of ''Gender and Story in South India'' and as author of ''[[Poetics of Conduct]]'',<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gender and Story in South India |url=https://sunypress.edu/Books/G/Gender-and-Story-in-South-India |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=SUNY Press |archive-date=25 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240725143042/https://sunypress.edu/Books/G/Gender-and-Story-in-South-India |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Poetics of Conduct: Oral Narrative and Moral Being in a South Indian Town |url=https://cup.columbia.edu/book/poetics-of-conduct/9780231139205 |access-date=2024-11-14 |date=November 2006 |publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-51127-8 }}</ref> for which she won the 2007 [[American Academy of Religion]] Best First Book in the History of Religions Award.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Past and Current Winners - AAR Book Awards |url=https://aarweb.org/AARMBR/About-AAR-/Award-Programs-/Awards/Book-Awards-/Winners-Book-Awards.aspx |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=aarweb.org |archive-date=29 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240529191536/https://www.aarweb.org/AARMBR/About-AAR-/Award-Programs-/Awards/Book-Awards-/Winners-Book-Awards.aspx |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2020, she released another book, ''The Audacious Raconteur''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Audacious Raconteur by Leela Prasad {{!}} Paperback |url=https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501752278/the-audacious-raconteur/ |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=Cornell University Press }}</ref> She was awarded a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] in 2023.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Leela Prasad |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/leela-prasad/ |access-date=2024-11-13 |website=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation |archive-date=14 May 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250514025458/https://www.gf.org/fellows/leela-prasad/ |url-status=live }}</ref> She served as vice president of the [[American Academy of Religion]] in 2023 and will become president in 2024, as well as the fourth Asian-American woman in the position.<ref name="wiareport">{{Cite news |date=2022-12-21 |title=Leela Prasad Selected to Lead the American Academy of Religion |url=https://www.wiareport.com/2022/12/leela-prasad-selected-to-lead-the-american-academy-of-religion/ |access-date=2024-11-14 |work=Women In Academia Report}}</ref> As of 2024, she and Baba Prasad are working as co-directors of ''Let Us See'', a [[docufiction]] film on [[Mahatma Gandhi]]'s 1944 interactions with a schoolteacher.<ref name="vivo.brown"/>

She is fluent in Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, and Telegu.<ref name="vivo.brown"/>

==Bibliography==
*''Live Like the Banyan Tree'' (1999)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Korom |first=Frank J. |date=2001 |title=Review of Live like the Banyan Tree: Images of the Indian American Experience |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3592380 |journal=The Journal of American Folklore |volume=114 |issue=451 |pages=70–73 |doi=10.2307/3592380 |jstor=3592380 |issn=0021-8715 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>
*''Gender and Story in South India'' (2006)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Davis |first=Coralynn V. |date=2007 |title=Review of Gender and Story in South India |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30030472 |journal=Asian Folklore Studies |volume=66 |issue=1/2 |pages=279–282 |jstor=30030472 |issn=0385-2342 }}</ref>
*''[[Poetics of Conduct]]'' (2006)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Clark-Decès |first=Isabelle |date=2009 |title=Poetics of Conduct: Oral Narrative and Moral Being in a South Indian Town |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/598237 |journal=History of Religions |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=259–260 |doi=10.1086/598237 |issn=0018-2710 |via=University of Chicago Press|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Davis |first=Donald R. |date=2008 |title=Review of Poetics of Conduct: Oral Narrative and Moral Being in a South Indian Town |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25608486 |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |volume=128 |issue=4 |pages=812–813 |jstor=25608486 |issn=0003-0279 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Herzfeld |first=Michael |date=2008 |title=Poetics of Conduct: Oral Narrative and Moral Being in a South Indian Town |url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/journal-of-asian-studies/article/67/3/1112/341682 |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |volume=67 |issue=3 |doi=10.1017/S0021911808001599 |issn=0021-9118 |via=Duke University Press|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Tannenbaum |first=Nicola |date=2009 |title=Poetics of Conduct: Oral Narrative and Moral Being in a South Indian Town by Leela Prasad |url=https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2009.01211_7.x |journal=American Ethnologist |volume=36 |issue=4 |pages=806–807 |doi=10.1111/j.1548-1425.2009.01211_7.x |issn=0094-0496 |via=Wiley Online Library|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
*''The Audacious Raconteur'' (2020)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lutgendorf |first=Philip |date=2023-03-20 |title=Review of The Audacious Raconteur: Sovereignty and Storytelling in Colonial India |url=https://lockwoodonlinejournals.com/index.php/jaos/article/view/2258 |journal= Journal of the American Oriental Society|volume=143 |issue=1 |pages=230–233 |doi=10.7817/jaos.143.1.2023.r0006 |issn=2169-2289 |via=Lockwood Online Journals|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Prasad, Leela}}
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Indian women historians]]
[[Category:21st-century Indian historians]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian historians]]
[[Category:Historians of India]]
[[Category:Indian historians of religion]]
[[Category:Indian film directors]]
[[Category:Indian women film directors]]
[[Category:Indian expatriate academics in the United States]]
[[Category:Presidents of the American Academy of Religion]]
[[Category:Osmania University alumni]]
[[Category:University of Hyderabad alumni]]
[[Category:Kansas State University alumni]]
[[Category:University of Pennsylvania alumni]]
[[Category:Duke University faculty]]
[[Category:Brown University faculty]]
[[Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]]

Leela Prasad - Revision history

Brigette13M: adding the article more to come!