Téa Nicolae
Thesis title: The Goddess's Descent to Earth: In Dialogue with the Reimaginations of the Mahābhārata's Draupadī
PhD supervisors:
Background
Téa is a scholar-practitioner and a poetess. She writes devotional (bhakti) poetry and her main research interests are the Mahābhārata, Śāktism, and non-dual philosophy.
During her MA in Religious Studies, completed at Lancaster University with a Distinction in 2021, Téa delved in the study of the Hindu epic the Mahābhārata and in explorations of Goddess worship. She researched the deification of the Mahābhārata’s characters, concentrating on the Goddess cult of its central heroine, Draupadī, as well as deconstructed the question of religious violence the epic poses. Téa's dissertation, awarded with a Distinction, examined the cosmogenic ramifications of the iconography of the ten central Goddesses of Non-dual Tantra. One of the papers completed in this timeframe, entitled ‘The Western Revival of Goddess Worship’, was published in the academic journal ‘Feminist Theology’ in January 2023.
Téa has recently completed her second master’s degree in the Writing of Poetry and Literary Translation at Warwick University, where she researched devotional (bhakti) poetry and Sanskrit hymns. Her dissertation explored the ethics and complexities of translating sacred texts, and her predicted grade for this degree is Distinction.
Lastly, Téa holds a BA in Film and Creative Writing from Lancaster University, fulfilled with a First Class Honours. Throughout her degree, she wrote about the metaphysical dimensions of film and explored spiritual poetry. The work she produced for her Creative Writing modules was published in 2023 in her debut poetry collection entitled "songs of youth". Téa's undergraduate dissertation, awarded with an A, dealt with transcendental encounters in mainstream cinema, examined from a Jungian perspective.
In addition to her formal academic training, Téa has been immersed in the study of Tantric oral-practice traditions with initiates of these streams since 2019. She considers that her academic writings are enriched by the insights and experience unearthed through practice.
Qualifications
B.A. in Film and Creative Writing from Lancaster University (First Class Honours)
M.A. in Religious Studies from Lancaster University (Distinction)
M.A. in Writing: Poetry and Literary Translation from Warwick University (Predicted Grade: Distinction)
Current research interests
My current research interests include the Mahābhārata, Śāktism, Kashmir Śaivism, Śaiva-Śākta Tantra, and non-dual philosophy.Past research interests
My past research interests include the connections between film and mysticism, Western Goddess worship, and devotional (bhakti) poetry.Project activity
Téa's research project focuses on modern representations of Draupadī, the epic heroine of the Mahābhārata. Vibrantly alive in the Indian consciousness, the Mahābhārata is regularly referred to in religion, film, literature, and morphs in symbiosis with Hindu culture and history as its characters undergo myriads of reimaginations. Draupadī, the fire-born empress and central heroine of the Mahābhārata, has been the subject of one of the greatest character transformations. In the Sanskrit epic, she is established as an incarnation of the Goddess Śrī (1.155.45) and, in an interpolated verse, as Śacī (Hiltebeitel, 2007), while she is respectively identified as a manifestation of the Supreme Divinity, Parāśakti, in the Tamil folk version (Hiltebeitel, 1988). In both versions, the Goddess descends to Earth, manifests as Draupadī, and lives, suffers, and dies as her, before returning to her celestial form (Hiltebeitel, 1988). In recent literature, historiographic metafiction, television, and popular culture, Draupadī is almost entirely stripped of her status as a Goddess and becomes remarkably human: she is portrayed as an abused victim (Devi, 2010); a scorned woman (Mahabharat, 1988); a vengeful warrior (Divakaruni, 2009); a feminist emblem (Mahabharat, 2013).
Questions Téa is exploring are:
What are the implications of Draupadī’s continuous cultural resurgence? What can the character’s transformation unveil about the human experience, and about female Hindu identity as it is formed and modelled by South Asian customs, history, and religion? Is the character’s cultural symbol larger than the epic itself?
Current project grants
The Edinburgh Doctoral College scholarship of the School of Divinity
Conference details
Conference: "Philosophy Across Disciplines"; Newcastle University. Presented paper: "Purity, Impurity and Pollution in Non-dual Philosophy".