Harshita Mruthinti Kamath earned her B.A. from Emory University, Masters in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, and Ph.D. from Emory University. Her research focuses on the textual and performance traditions of the South Indian language of Telugu in conversation with theoretical discourses on gender and sexuality in South Asia.

Dr. Kamath's monograph, Impersonations: The Artifice of Brahmin Masculinity in Kuchipudi Dance (University of California Press, 2019), centers on an insular community of Smarta brahmin male dancers from the Kuchipudi village in Telugu-speaking South India who are required to don stri-vesam (woman's guise) and impersonate female characters from Hindu religious narratives. Shifting across village, urban and transnational spaces, the book shows how normative ideals of gender, caste and sexuality are maintained through the embodied practice of impersonation among Kuchipudi brahmin male dancers.