Hello from my temporary, but very sunny desk in Eichstätt! My name is Rumya Putcha. I am an associate professor at the University of Georgia in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Currently, I am in residence at KU with the Practicing Place research group as a Mercator fellow. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time here in Eichstatt, getting to know the team of scholars and thinking with them about the practices of place, and learning more about academic life here in Germany.
A little about me: My work sits at the intersection of cultural anthropology, performance, and gender studies, with a more recent emphasis on interdisciplinary ecology. My current research focuses on practices of somatic orientalism that extend to and from the bodily habits of historical subjects documented as yogis. In this book project, tentatively titled “Ecologies of Yoga: Somatic Orientalism and Imaginations of India,” I am studying the shifting contexts in which foreigners sought or continue to seek out individuals identified as yogis and how, in turn, yoga operates as a simulacra within a broader assemblage by which India is conceptualized. In the keynote lecture I gave on June 26, 2025, as part of the conference, Contesting Place—Practices of (Un)Doing, I focused on how visual representations of Indian landscapes featured yogis during the colonial era and how technological innovations that connected hand sketches to ethnographic photographs and later, tourist postcards, encouraged sensory, bodily, and emotional attachments to India.
While I am here in Germany, I will also be working on an aspect of the project that situates the yogi at the center of early botanical practices, from bioprospecting to the rise of botanical gardens and medico-pharmacology in the early modern era. My interests in the ecologies of plant circulation have been particularly well-served by my time here in Eichstätt as I have been able to spend time at the botanical garden, the Hortus Eystettensis, which is located about 20 minutes from the university campus, at the Willibaldsburg Castle.
The garden was the first of its kind in the region and was arguably modeled after early European collecting gardens like the ones in Padua or Leiden. It was also the first to be represented and circulate in print form as an illustrated collection, known at the time as a florilegium. The full title of the work is “Hortus Eystettensis, Sive Diligens Et Accurata Omnium Plantarum, Florum, Stirpium, Ex Variis Orbis Terrae Partibus, Singulari Studio Collectarum Quae In Celeberrimis Viridariis Arcem Episcopalem Ibidem Cingentibus, Hoc Tempore Conspiciuntur Delineatio Et Ad Vivum Repraesentatio,” which translates to “Hortus Eystettensis, or a Careful and Accurate Depiction and Lifelike Representation of All the Plants, Flowers, and Herbs, Collected with Singular Dedication from Various Parts of the World, Which Are Now to Be Seen in the Renowned Gardens Surrounding the Episcopal Palace in Eichstätt.” I am looking forward to returning to Eichstätt to continue my work on the garden, and on the text based on it, which is housed in original manuscript form at the KU special collections library.
