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Indian Religions
Indian Religions December 8, 2022

Words for the Heart

A Treasury of Emotions from Classical India

Maria Heim

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Words for the Heart: A Treasury of Emotions from Classical India (Princeton UP, 2022) is a captivating treasury of emotion terms drawn from some of India’s earliest classical languages. Inspired …

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Interviews with scholars of Indian religions about their new books.

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Indian Religions December 1, 2022

Human Being, Bodily Being

Phenomenology from Classical India

Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
In Human Being, Bodily Being: Phenomenology from Classical India (Oxford UP, 2021), Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad offers illuminating new perspectives on contemporary phenomenological theories of body and subjectivity, based on studies of diverse classical …
Indian Religions November 28, 2022

The Future of Religious Studies

A Conversation with Russell McCutcheon

Russell McCutcheon

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Russell McCutcheon shares his views on the academic study of religion, and the path ahead for religion graduates and the field itself. McCutcheon is a professor of religious studies at …
Indian Religions November 24, 2022

Wonders and Rarities

The Marvelous Book That Traveled the World and Mapped the Cosmos

Travis Zadeh

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
During the thirteenth century, the Persian naturalist and judge Zakariyyāʾ Qazwīnī authored what became one of the most influential works of natural history in the world: Wonders and Rarities. Exploring …
Religion November 23, 2022

The Secular Imaginary

Gandhi, Nehru and the Idea(s) of India

Sushmita Nath

Hosted by Tiatemsu Longkumer
Given the popularity and success of the Hindu-Right in India’s electoral politics today, how may one study ostensibly ‘Western’ concepts and ideas, such as the secular and its family of …
Philosophy November 21, 2022

The Tattvasaṃgraha Of Śāntarakṣita

Selected Metaphysical Chapters

Charles Goodman

Hosted by Malcolm Keating
The Tattvasaṃgraha of Śāntarakṣita: Selected Metaphysical Chapters (Oxford University Press, 2022) collects excerpts from a massive encyclopedic work of the late period of Buddhism in India. Translator Charles Goodman has …
Indian Religions November 18, 2022

Sensitive Reading

The Pleasures of South Asian Literature in Translation

Yigal Bronner (ed.), Charles Hallisey (ed.), and David Shulman (trans.)

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
What are the pleasures of reading translations of South Asian literature, and what does it take to enjoy a translated text? Sensitive Reading: The Pleasures of South Asian Literature in …
Indian Religions November 17, 2022

The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics

Debates on Gender, Varna, and Species

Ruth Vanita

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Ruth Vanita's book The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics (Oxford UP, 2021) shows that many characters in the Sanskrit epics - men and women of all varnas and mixed-varna …
Indian Religions November 16, 2022

The Amṛtasiddhi and Amṛtasiddhimūla

The Earliest Texts of the Haṭhayoga Tradition

James Mallinson and Péter-Dániel Szántó

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Today I talked to Jame Mallinson about The Amṛtasiddhi and Amṛtasiddhimūla: The Earliest Texts of the Haṭhayoga Tradition (Institut français de Pondichéry, 2021), a critical edition and translation of the Amṛtasiddhi, the earliest …
Indian Religions November 10, 2022

Hinduism in Five Minutes

Steven W. Ramey

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Hinduism in Five Minutes (Equinox Publishing, 2022) is an accessible and lively introduction to common questions about the practices, ideas, and narratives often identified as Hindu. Suitable for beginning students and …
Indian Religions November 9, 2022

Hinduism in Middle India

Narasimha, The Lord of the Middle

Lavanya Vemsani

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Narasimha is one of the least studied major deities of Hinduism. Furthermore, there are limited studies of the history, thought, and literature of middle India. Lavanya Vemsani redresses this by …
Caribbean Studies November 7, 2022

The Deepest Dye

Obeah, Hosay, and Race in the Atlantic World

Aisha Khan

Hosted by Aleem Mahabir
In The Deepest Dye: Obeah, Hosay, and Race in the Atlantic World (Harvard University Press, 2021), Aisha Khan explores how colonial categories of race and religion together created identities and …
Indian Religions November 3, 2022

Identifying and Regulating Religion in India

Law, History and the Place of Worship

Geetanjali Srikantan

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Judicial debates on the regulation of religion in post-colonial India have been characterised by the inability of courts to identify religion as a governable phenomenon. Geetanjali Srikantan's book Identifying and Regulating …
Indian Religions October 31, 2022

Online Sanskrit Study Resources

A Discussion with Michael Fiden

Michael Fiden

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
A conversation with Michael Fiden about University of Texas at Austin’s new open access online resource for second-year Sanskrit students, either for self-study or as a supplement to instruction. Raj …
Nordic Asia Podcast October 28, 2022

Political Deification in South Asia

A Discussion with Moumita Sen, Michael Stausberg, Praskanva Sinharay and Sharika Thiranagama

Moumita Sen, Michael Stausberg, Praskanva Sinharay and Sharika Thiranagama

Hosted by Kenneth Bo Nielsen
How can we understand the processes through which political leaders, god-men, stars of all kinds, and big or small deities mingle together in the public sphere? And what are the …
On Religion October 27, 2022

On the Unraveling of Nepal's Hindu Monarchy

A Discussion with Anne Mocko

Anne Mocko

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Anne Mocko is Associate Professor of Asian Religions at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. She is a specialist in the religions of South Asia, and has spent several years living …
Indian Religions October 27, 2022

Ayurveda and Alchemy

A Conversation with Dagmar Wujastyk

Dagmar Wujastyk

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
A candid conversation with Dr. Dagmar Wujastyk about her fascinating work at the intersection of yoga, Ayurveda, and alchemy. Dr. Wujastyk’s online course “Ayurveda, Yoga and Alchemy." Raj Balkaran is …
On Religion October 25, 2022

On Social Media and Hinduism

A Discussion with Dheepa Sundaram

Dheepa Sundaram

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Dheepa Sundaram (she/her/hers) is scholar of performance, ritual, yoga, and digital culture in South Asia at the University of Denver which sits on the unceded tribal lands of the Cheyenne …
Indian Religions October 20, 2022

India in the Eyes of Europeans

Conceptualization of Religion in Theology and Oriental Studies

Martin Fárek

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Martin Fárek's India in the Eyes of Europeans: Conceptualization of Religion in Theology and Oriental Studies (Karolinum Press, Charles University, 2021) is centred around the claim that although the research …
Indian Religions October 13, 2022

Guru to the World

The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda

Ruth Harris

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Guru to the World: The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda (Harvard UP, 2022) tells the story of Swami Vivekananda, the nineteenth-century Hindu ascetic who introduced the West to yoga and …