All Episodes
Episodes
Open Access Publishing: A Conversation with Dominik Haas
What is Open Access Publishing and why is it important? Listen in as Raj Balkaran interviews Dominik A. Haas on his Fair Open Access Publishing in South Asian Studies (FOASAS) initiative which maintains a list of...
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Y. Bronner and L. J. McCrea, "First Words, Last Words: New Theories for Reading Old Texts in Sixteenth Century India" (Oxford UP, 2021)
First Words, Last Words: New Theories for Reading Old Texts in Sixteenth Century IndiaĀ (Oxford UP, 2021) charts an intense "pamphlet war" that took place in sixteenth-century South India. Yigal Bronner and Lawrence...
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Kristin Hanssen, "Women, Religion and the Body in South Asia: Living With Bengali Bauls" (Routledge, 2020)
Noted for their haunting melodies and enigmatic lyrics, Bauls have been portrayed as spiritually enlightened troubadours traveling around the countryside in West Bengal in India and in Bangladesh. As emblems of...
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Religious Studies Today: A Conversation with Amir Hussain
Listen in as Raj Balkaran speaks with Amir Hussain (Chair, Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University) about his scholarship on Muslims in America, his work as the Editor of theĀ Journal of the American Academy...
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Emilia Bachrach, "In the Service of Krishna: Illustrating the Lives of Eighty-Four Vaishnavas from a 1702 Manuscript" (Mapin, 2020)
Today IĀ talked toĀ Dr.Ā Emilia BachrachĀ aboutĀ In the Service of Krishna: Illustrating the Lives of Eighty-Four Vaishnavas from a 1702 Manuscript in the Amit Ambalal CollectionĀ (Mapin, 2020).
The Pushtimarg, or the Path...
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A Conversation with Jacob Kyle, Founder of Embodied Philosophy
Raj Balkaran speaks with Jacob Kyle about the genesis and vision of the online educational platformĀ Embodied Philosophy. Over the course of their rich conversation, they touch on contemplative studies, the journal...
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Jeffery D. Long, "Jainism: An Introduction" (I. B. Tauris, 2009)
Jainism evokes images of monks wearing face-masks to protect insects and mico-organisms from being inhaled. Or of Jains sweeping the ground in front of them to ensure that living creatures are not inadvertently...
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Vijaya Nagarajan, "Feeding a Thousand Souls: Women, Ritual, and Ecology in India--an Exploration of the Kolam" (Oxford UP, 2018)
Every day millions of Tamil women in southeast India wake up before dawn to create a kolam, an ephemeral ritual design made with rice flour, on the thresholds of homes, businesses and temples. This thousand-year-old...
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Robin Derricourt, "Creating God: The Birth and Growth of Major Religions" ( Manchester UP, 2021)
What do we really know about how and where religions began, and how they spread?Ā
Robin Derricourt considers the birth and growth of several major religions, using history and archaeology to recreate the times, places...
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McComas Taylor, "The Viį¹£į¹u PurÄį¹a: Ancient Annals of the God with Lotus Eyes" (Australian National UP, 2021)
Listen in as we speak with McComas Taylor (Associate Professor and Reader in Sanskrit, The Australian National University) about his brand-new translation of theĀ Viį¹£į¹u PurÄį¹a. This is the second time the Viį¹£į¹u PurÄį¹a...
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A Conversation with Greg Bailey: Sanskrit Scholar and Novelist
This interview features a candidĀ conversation withĀ Greg Bailey,Ā seasoned scholar of Sanskrit narrative Literature,Ā on his multi-decade work on the PurÄį¹as and MahÄbhÄrata, and on his new novelĀ In Search of Bliss: A...
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Shankar Nair, "Translating Wisdom: Hindu-Muslim Intellectual Interactions in Early Modern South Asia" (U California Press, 2020)
During the height of Muslim power in Mughal South Asia, Hindu and Muslim scholars worked collaboratively to translate a large body of Hindu Sanskrit texts into the Persian language. Translating Wisdom reconstructs the...
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