Dr. Nimeshika Venkatesan graduated, with BA English Honours at Christ University in Bengaluru; MA in English from Stella Maris College Autonomous and Ph.D. in English from Madras University, Chennai. She considers herself a nascent folklorist and literary scholar specializing in Folkloristics and Bhakti Studies, her doctoral research developed a transdisciplinary framework integrating literary criticism and folkloristics to examine storytelling traditions in the novelized saint narratives of the Vīraśaiva saints Akka Mahadevi, Allamaprabhu, and Basavanna, balancing Western theoretical approaches with indigenous critical perspectives. Her research explores the intersections of folklore, religion, Bhakti Studies, Popular Culture, Intermediality, and Indigenous Knowledge Systems. She currently serves as the Indian Advisory Board member for the Taylor & Francis journal Folklore (since January 2025) Dr. Venkatesan has published widely in national and international journals and has presented her research at conferences across India and internationally, including Latvia, Croatia, Spain, and Estonia.

Work Experience

Experience 6.5 years

• 2022- 2026,  Assistant Professor, Department of English, Sivasubramania Nadar college of Engineering,
• 2020 – 2022, Assistant Professor, Department of English (Shift II), Stella Maris college Autonomous.
• 2014-2015, Lecturer, Department of English, Sir M Vishveshwaraya institute of Technology, Bengaluru

Project

Ongoing (2024-2026)

• Internally funded project

1. Creating a Digital Hub for Archiving and Promotion of Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Heritage

Course

MA Folklore and Cultural Studies Program (IGNOU)

1. Title: Finnish Historical and Geographical Method in Monogenesis Theories, 2021
2. Title: Feminist and Queer and Disability Approaches in Contextualizing the Semiotic Approaches, 2021.

Publications

1. Book Chapters

1. Venkatesan, Nimeshika, and Kikee Doma Bhutia. “Decolonizing Through Desi Genres: Trans-generic Approaches to South Asian Fairy Tales”. The Routledge Companion to Fairy Tales, edited by Christa M. L. Schwabe and Andrea J., Routledge, 2025, pp. 58-73.
2. Venkatesan, Nimeshika. “Contextuality and Postmodern Manifestation of Folk Material Culture in Commercial Decorative Art and Artifacts.” In Repositioning Folklore and Indigenous Knowledge Systems, 2014.

2. Journals

1. K Bhutia, Kikee Doma, and Nimeshika Venkatesan. “Toppling the Tables: Navigating from the Periphery to the Center through (Inter)sectional Subalternity in Regional South Asian Films.” New York Folklore, vol. 49:3-4, 2023. pp. 15-22. (back dated published in 2025)
2. Venkatesan, Nimeshika. 2023. “Sita’s Story: Intertextuality and Folkloric Allusions in the Creation of a Desi Feminist Discourse in Nandini Sahu’s Sita.” Creative Saplings 1 (1): 12–25. https://doi.org/10.56062/gtrs.2023.1.01.410
3. Venkatesan, Nimeshika. “Re-narrating Vikram and Vetal: A Visual Adaptation of a Popular Folktale.” Dogo Rangsang 9, no. 15 (2022): 495–504.
4. Venkatesan, Nimeshika. “Skirting Boundaries of Folk and Popular: Role of Intermediality in Shaping Mirabai as a Folk Cultural Icon.” Literary Voice 2, no. 13 (2021): 240–246.
5. Venkatesan, Nimeshika. “Dialogic Interactions in Vernacular Hinduism: A Perspective on Therukoothu, Folk Ritualistic Theatre of South India.” Kalyan Bharathi 36, no. 1 (2021): 48–61.
6. Venkatesan, Nimeshika. “Examining the Surrealist Landscape in Karaikkal Ammaiyar’s Thiruvālaṅgāṭṭu Mūthātha Thiruppadhikam.” The Investigator 1, no. 2 (2015): 123–129

3. Research articles

1. Venkatesan, Nimeshika. “Detours: Mystical Speech Genres as Vernacular Expressions of Religion.” ISFNR Newsletter 7 (2019). http://www.isfnr.org/ISFNR-newsletter.php

4. Conferences

• 2019

• “Transforming Nature of Pilgrimage: A Case Study of Southern India” in the panel The Changing Character of Pilgrimages at Track Changes: Reflecting on a Transforming World, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain, 14–17 April 2019.

• 2022

• Nimeshika Venkatesan. “‘God Will Poke Your Eyes’: The Ontology of Fear in Religious Practices of South India” in the panel Emotions and Religious Practices at the 18th Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research (ISFNR), titled Encountering Emotions in Folk Narrative and Folklife, virtual congress hosted from Zagreb, Croatia, 5–8 September 2021.
• Nimeshika Venkatesan. “A Method to Memory: A Dialogue on Memory as a Tool in Ethnography” at the International Memory Studies Conference titled Memory in a Digital Age, organized by the Centre for Memory Studies, IIT Madras, Chennai, India, 23–25 August 2022. Chaired two conference panels.

• 2023

• Nimeshika Venkatesan. “Storying Saints: A Folkloristic Study on South Asian Storytelling in the ICSSR and NERC funded national conference titled Reading Narratives: Storying Humanities, organized by the Department of English Assam University Silchar, Assam, India, 24-25th August 2023.

• 2024

• Dr. Nimeshika Venkatesan and Bysani Vishal. “Mythology, Ontology and Technology: (Re) Reading Memory in the Age of AI”, INMS  2024 Annual Conference “Memory, Security and Sustainability, Centre for Memory Studies, IIT Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, September 16-18, 2024, pp.
• Nimeshika Venkatesan & Kikee Doma Bhutia. “Intersectional Subalternity and the Case of Cinematic Storytelling in Regional South Asian Films,” 19th ISFNR Congress (International Society for Folk Narrative Research) “Folk Narratives in the Changing World” Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia, June 17-21, 2024, pp.

• 2025

• Nimeshika Venkatesan. “Living Memory Digital Archiving and Community Building Documenting Everyday Heritage in Educational Institutions”, the international memory studies conference entitled “Memory, Narrative Designs, and Strategies of Preservation” organised by the Centre for Memory Studies, IIT Madras, 27-29 October.
• Invited Speaker ICSSR funded National Seminar titled Revisioning Therukoothu:
  Intermedial Transgressions and Transformations in
  the Art, Artist, and the Artefact, Government College for Women, Pali, Rewari, 21-22nd February 2025.

Awards

• Dora Plus Erasmus Fellowship from September 2018 to May 2019

Areas of Research

1. Bhakti Studies
2. Hagiography
3. Intermediality
4. Fairy Tales

Links

1. Public outreach

 Roots and Ritual Online Lecture Series, Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology Indiana University Bloomington ,17th May 2025,

• Talk Title: “Evolving Voices of Bhakti: Reassessing Narratives and Narratology in South Asian Religion”
• Roots and Rituals Collective – Roots and Ritual Online Lecture Series 2025

2. Podcast: What the Folk Podcast

• Hosts: Kikee Doma Bhutia and Nimeshika Venkatesan
• Brief: Dr. Kikee Doma Bhutia and Nimeshika Venkatesan, two early-career folklorists, unpack the excitement and uncertainty of academic life while making folklore jargon accessible. Drawing on fieldwork across South India and Northeast India, they explore beliefs, rituals, narratives, and material culture through their own research journeys.
• https://open.spotify.com/show/0Z9SILp95j6dXFUVUHnBvd?si=b6afc1b06843469c