Deep Cosmopolitanism, Kudyatam Dynamic Tradition and Globalizing Heritage in Kerala, India

This book explores the extraordinary past and present of Kutiyattam Sanskrit theater, the world's oldest continuously performed theater.

It illustrates how Kutiyattam Sanskrit theater has encountered multiple forms of cosmopolitanism over the course of its thousand-year history.

Exploring how Kutiyattam artists create meaning out of their deep past through everyday narratives and reflections, Leah Lowthorp traces the art's cosmopolitan encounters over time, from the premodern Sanskrit cosmopolis to Muslim sultans, British colonialists, Communist politics, and UNESCO intangible cultural heritage.

In so doing, Lowthorp fundamentally rethinks the notion of cosmopolitanism from a non-Western perspective with premodern roots and offers a critique of the colonialist undertones of how international heritage organizations like UNESCO conceptualize peoples and traditions around the world.

It offers a model for decolonizing modernity and challenges us to rethink what it means to be cosmopolitan, traditional, and modern in the world today.