Rita Banerjee – Rasa Theory: Cultivating Emotion & Suspense in Poetry & Fiction (July 2023)

Plato argues that human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. But in the Nāṭyaśāstra (ca. 200 BCE), Bharata demonstrates that emotion is the origin of all human psychology, desire, intrigue, and action. Rita Banerjee’s presentation explores Bharata’s development of rasa theory and investigates how rasa theory can function as an approach to narrative design, lyricism, reader response, and revision.