All Episodes
Episodes
Michael S. Allen, "The Ocean of Inquiry: Niscaldas and the Premodern Origins of Modern Hinduism" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Michael S. Allen's book The Ocean of Inquiry: Niscaldas and the Premodern Origins of Modern Hinduism (Oxford UP, 2022) focuses on a single remarkable work and its place within that history: "The Ocean of Inquiry," a...
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Silvia Schwarz Linder, "Goddess Traditions in India: Theological Poems and Philosophical Tales in the Tripurarahasya" (Routledge, 2022)
Silvia Schwarz Linder's Goddess Traditions in India: Theological Poems and Philosophical Tales in the Tripurarahasya (Routledge, 2022) is a study of the ĆrÄ«vidyÄ and ĆÄkta traditions in the context of South Indian...
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Aniket De, "The Boundary of Laughter: Popular Performances Across Borders in South Asia" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Combining archival research with ethnographic fieldwork, Aniket De's book The Boundary of Laughter: Popular Performances Across Borders in South Asia (Oxford UP, 2022) explores how spaces of popular performance have...
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Vinayak Chaturvedi, "Hindutva and Violence: V. D. Savarkar and the Essentials of History" (SUNY Press, 2022)
Hindutva and Violence: V. D. Savarkar and the Essentials of History (SUNY Press, 2022) explores the place of history in the political thought of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966), the most controversial Indian...
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Michael J. Altman, "Hinduism in America: An Introduction" (Routledge, 2022)
Hinduism in America: An Introduction (Routledge, 2022) is a concise introduction to the long history of religion in the encounter between America and India. It is not a book that will tell you what Hinduism is;...
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On Yoga, Cultural Appropriation, and Racism
Shreena Gandhi is a multi-faceted cultural historian of religion with expertise in religion, race, the Americas and Hinduism. Trained at Swarthmore, Harvard and the University of Florida, Professor Gandhi currently...
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Caleb Simmons, "Singing the Goddess Into Place: Locality, Myth, and Social Change in Chamundi of the Hill, a Kannada Folk Ballad" (SUNY Press, 2022)
Singing the Goddess Into Place: Locality, Myth, and Social Change in Chamundi of the Hill, a Kannada Folk Ballad (SUNY Press, 2022) demonstrates how folk narratives reflect local context while also actively working to...
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Meenal Shrivastava, "Ammaâs Daughters: A Memoir" (Athabasca UP, 2018)
Today I talked to about Ammaâs Daughters: A Memoir (Athabasca UP, 2018). This book is available open access here.Â
As a precocious young girl, Surekha knew very little about the details of her mother Ammaâs unusual...
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Koushiki Dasgupta, "Sadhus in Indian Politics: Dynamics of Hindutva" (Sage, 2021)
Koushiki Dasgupta's Sadhus in Indian Politics: Dynamics of Hindutva (Sage, 2021) maps the changing face of contemporary Hindu politics, evaluating the influence of sadhus (ascetics) on the course of politics in India....
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Marion (Mugs) McConnell, "Letters from the Yoga Masters" (North Atlantic Books, 2016)
This intimate and insightful account of the life of Dr. Harry (Hari) Dickman, referred to by Swami Sivananda as âthe yogi of the West,â features more than fifty years of correspondence between Dickman and well-known...
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Kajri Jain, "Gods in the Time of Democracy" (Duke UP, 2021)
In 2018 India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, inaugurated the world's tallest statue: a 597-foot figure of nationalist leader Sardar Patel. Twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, it is but one of many massive...
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Wendy Doniger, "After the War: The Last Books of the Mahabharata" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Wendy Doniger's After the War: The Last Books of the Mahabharata (Oxford UP, 2022) is a new translation of the final part of the Mahabharata, the great Sanskrit Epic poem about a devastating fraternal war. In this...
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