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India Studies
Indian Religions January 5, 2023

Futures of Artificial Intelligence

Perspectives from India and the U.S.

Robert M. Geraci

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Twenty-first century life is increasingly governed by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as machine learning, big data analysis, facial recognition, and robotics. For decades, an ideology of apocalyptic progress and …

India Studies

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Interviews with scholars of India about their new books.

Literary Studies October 14, 2022

Space, Utopia and Indian Decolonization

Literary Pre-Figurations of the Postcolony

Sandeep Banerjee

Hosted by Gargi Binju
Sandeep Banerjee's book Space, Utopia and Indian Decolonization: Literary Pre-Figurations of the Postcolony (Routledge, 2021) illuminates the spatial utopianism of South Asian anti-colonial texts by showing how they refuse colonial spatial …
South Asian Studies September 26, 2022

India After World History

Literature, Comparison, and Approaches to Globalization

Neilesh Bose

Hosted by Gargi Binju
In the twenty-first century, terms such as globalization, global, and world function as key words at the cusp of new frontiers in both historical writing and literary criticism. Practitioners of …
South Asian Studies September 16, 2022

Retro-modern India

Forging the Low Caste Self

Manuela Ciotti

Hosted by Kalyani Kalyani
Manuela Ciotti's Retro-modern India: Forging the Low Caste Self (Routledge, 2020) is interesting engagement with Chamar identity and understanding it through the lens of modernity. Through a rich ethnographic engagement …
Indian Religions September 8, 2022

Goddess Traditions in India

Theological Poems and Philosophical Tales in the Tripurarahasya

Silvia Schwarz Linder

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Silvia Schwarz Linder's Goddess Traditions in India: Theological Poems and Philosophical Tales in the Tripurarahasya (Routledge, 2022) is a study of the Śrīvidyā and Śākta traditions in the context of South …
Indian Religions August 11, 2022

Sadhus in Indian Politics

Dynamics of Hindutva

Koushiki Dasgupta

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
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 …
Indian Religions July 28, 2022

Democracy and Social Cleavage in India

Ethnography of Riots, Everyday Politics and Communalism in West Bengal C. 2012-2021

Suman Nath

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Suman Nath's book Democracy and Social Cleavage in India: Ethnography of Riots, Everyday Politics and Communalism in West Bengal (2012-2021) (Routledge, 2022) explores the emergence of identity politics and violence at …
Anthropology July 26, 2022

Being Single in India

Stories of Gender, Exclusion, and Possibility

Sarah Lamb

Hosted by Garima Jaju
Today, the majority of the world's population lives in a country with falling marriage rates, a phenomenon with profound impacts on women, gender, and sexuality.  In Being Single in India …
Indian Religions July 7, 2022

Botanical Ecstasies

Psychoactive Plant Formulas in India and Beyond

Matthew Clark

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
In Botanical Ecstasies: Psychoactive Plant Formulas in India and Beyond, Dr Matthew Clark proposes that soma/hoama is instead an ayahuasca-like plant complex made from many different species. He discusses a …
Indian Religions June 27, 2022

The Stories Behind the Poses

The Indian Mythology That Inspired 50 Yoga Postures

Raj Balkaran

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Raj Balkaran's 200th podcast episode: Christa Kuberry interviews him on his beautifully written new book The Stories Behind the Poses: The Indian Mythology That Inspired 50 Yoga Postures (Leaping Hare, 2022), and highlighting their …
Indian Religions May 26, 2022

Sabdanugamah

Indian Linguistic Studies in Honor of George Cardona; Volume 1: Vyakarana and Sabdabodha

Peter Scharf

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Sabdanugamah (Sanskrit Library, 2021) is the first of two volumes of studies in honor of Professor George Cardona, the preeminent authority on Paninian grammar and the linguistic traditions of India as …
South Asian Studies May 3, 2022

Kings, Spirits and Memory in Central India

Enchanting the State

Aditya Pratap Deo

Hosted by Tiatemsu Longkumer
Part anthropological history and part memoir, this book is a study of the polity of the colonial-princely state of Kanker in central India. Aditya Pratap Deo's book Kings, Spirits and Memory …
Indian Religions April 21, 2022

Spiritual Empires in Europe and India

Cosmopolitan Religious Movements from 1875 to the Interwar Era

Perry Myers

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Spiritual Empires in Europe and India: Cosmopolitan Religious Movements from 1875 to the Interwar Era (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021) provides a comparative analysis of cosmopolitan (esoteric) religious movements, such as Theosophy …
Indian Religions April 14, 2022

Grhastha

The Householder in Ancient Indian Religious Culture

Patrick Olivelle

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Today I talked to Patrick Olivelle about his book Grhastha: The Householder in Ancient Indian Religious Culture (Oxford UP, 2019). For scholars of ancient Indian religions, the wandering mendicants who left home …
Nordic Asia Podcast April 11, 2022

India’s Ukrainian Dilemma

A Discussion with Ravinder Kaur, Henrik Chetan Aspengren and Sunniva Engh

Ravinder Kaur, Henrik Chetan Aspengren and Sunniva Engh

Hosted by Kenneth Bo Nielsen
The Russian war in Ukraine has placed India in a difficult situation: how to retain the historically good relationship with Russia, without jeopardizing the increasingly important strategic partnership with the …
Sociology April 4, 2022

Ethnic Inequality in the Northeastern Indian Borderlands

Social Structures and Symbolic Violence

Anita Lama

Hosted by Rituparna Patgiri
Anita Lama's book Ethnic Inequality in the Northeastern Indian Borderlands (Routledge, 2020) analyses the relationship between symbolic violence, inequality and ethnicity, and addresses the question of unequal integration of small ethnic …
Indian Religions March 17, 2022

A Time of Novelty

Logic, Emotion, and Intellectual Life in Early Modern India, 1500-1700 C.E.

Samuel Wright

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Samuel Wright's A Time of Novelty: Logic, Emotion, and Intellectual Life in Early Modern India, 1500-1700 C.E. (Oxford UP, 2021) argues that a philosophical community emerges in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century …
Asian Review of Books March 10, 2022

Indians in London

From the Birth of the East India Company to Independent India

Arup K. Chatterjee

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
London has always been a galvanizing factor for the South Asian community—whether due to the machinations of empire, the drive for higher education, or the need to make a living …
Indian Religions March 8, 2022

Astrology in India

A Sociological Inquiry

Nupurnima Yadav

Hosted by Tiatemsu Longkumer
Astrology in India: A Sociological Inquiry (Taylor & Francis, 2021) critically examines the larger world of astrology in India, its ubiquity and relationship with religion, caste, gender, class, and aspirations. It …
Indian Religions February 17, 2022

Strong Arms and Drinking Strength

Masculinity, Violence, and the Body in Ancient India

Jarrod Whitaker

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Today I talked to Jarrod Whitaker about his book Strong Arms and Drinking Strength: Masculinity, Violence, and the Body in Ancient India (Oxford UP, 2011). The Rgveda contains over a thousand hymns …