Sh. D. Venkat Rao

Shri D. Venkat Rao teaches at Nalanda University, Rajgir. He undertook postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Washington, Seattle, and has taught at various universities in India and at the University of Washington.

In addition to books in English and Telugu, he has published widely in national and international journals. His recent work includes Envisioning Voice and the Aphasic Ears: Of Sanskrit Reflective Traditions Today (Bloomsbury, 2025), India, Europe and the Question of Cultural Difference (Routledge, 2021), Performative Reflections of Indian Traditions: Towards a Liveable Learning (Springer, 2021), and Critical Humanities from India: Contexts, Issues, Futures (Routledge, 2018). His other publications include Cultures of Memory in South Asia (Springer, 2014), In Citations: Readings in Area Studies of Culture (1999), a Telugu translation of Ashis Nandy's Intimate Enemy (2005), an English translation of the Telugu intellectual autobiography The Last Brahmin (2007), and a full-length work of literary-cultural criticism in Telugu, Saamskritika Chaanakyaalu (2005).

His areas of interest include literary and cultural studies, image studies, epic traditions, visual cultures, comparative thought, translation, and mnemocultures. He has designed several courses at the interface of culture, technology, literary and cultural studies, and Sanskrit traditions, developed a research programme under the rubric of Critical Humanities, and edits the Routledge book series on Critical Humanities Across Cultures.