Archive · 14 Aug 2026
Wendy Doniger Has the Last Laugh in New Memoir
Wendy Doniger is a very smart person who studies stories from India.
She wrote a new book about her life, called 'For the Love of Stories.'
In her book, she tells a funny story about a man named Robert Goldman.
He also studies old Indian stories, called Sanskrit.
A long time ago, when they worked at the same university, he was not nice to her.
Wendy says he made her time there very hard.
Many years later, Wendy was asked to write about Robert's new translation of the Ramayana, a famous old story.
She made some jokes about him in her review.
Robert wrote an angry reply, and a famous magazine printed both of them.
Wendy put the whole story in her memoir, so she gets the last laugh.
Wendy Doniger's new memoir is titled 'For the Love of Stories: Confessions of an Accidental Feminist.'
She recounts a decades-long enmity with Sanskritist Robert P. Goldman, who she says 'loathed me and made my life in that department hell' at UC Berkeley.
Now at the University of Chicago, Doniger was invited to review Goldman's single-volume Ramayana translation and made 'a number of points and jokes at Bob's expense.'
Goldman responded with what Doniger calls a 'furious, humorless, self-incriminating response.'
The New York Review published both pieces, titling Goldman's response 'Cousin Bob and Cousin Wendy' because the two are related by marriage.
- Who
- Wendy Doniger, scholar and author of the memoir, and Sanskritist Robert P. Goldman.
- What
- Doniger's memoir recounts her public feud with Goldman over her review of his Ramayana translation.
- When
- Some four decades after Doniger's difficult years at UC Berkeley, though no exact date is given.
- Where
- University of California at Berkeley and the University of Chicago; the exchange was published in The New York Review.
- Why
- Doniger sought to claim the last laugh in her memoir after Goldman's old enmity and his angry response to her critical review.
- Memoir Title
- For the Love of Stories: Confessions of an Accidental Feminist
- Author
- Wendy Doniger
- Rival
- Robert P. Goldman, Sanskritist
- Disputed Work
- Goldman's single-volume translation of the Ramayana
- Publisher of Exchange
- The New York Review
- Goldman's Response Title
- Cousin Bob and Cousin Wendy
- Doniger's University
- University of Chicago (Divinity School; South Asian Languages and Civilizations; Social Thought)
- Former University
- University of California at Berkeley