Hinduism Unit

New Books in Hindu Studies 

Contact: Sohini Pillai (sohini.pillai@kzoo.edu)

Description: This panel features first monographs in Hindu studies with the aim of both exposing scholars in the field to new theoretical interventions, and of providing concrete ideas about how to incorporate those interventions into scholars’ own pedagogies. Given the range of new books in Hindu studies, preference will be given to first monographs.

To nominate a book for consideration (either your own or someone else’s), please email Sohini Pillai.

Hinduism in the Anthropocene 

Contact: Gaurika Mehta (gmehta@scu.edu)

How are Hindu communities, rituals, practices, myths and sacred places impacted by and/or implicated in debates surrounding the Anthropocene, our current era of human-inflicted climate change? For this panel, we invite scholars to think about how pollution, climate disasters (flooding, frequent cyclones, landslides, forest fires), changes in agriculture and tourism, mining, energy extraction, and deforestation affect Hindu communities in South Asia and the diaspora. Topics might include (but are not limited to): 1) ritual adaptations and challenges, 2) polluted/sacred geography, 3) Hinduism, caste, and climate change, 4) relationships between the human and non-human, 5) emergence and circulation of apocalyptic prophecies and conspiracy theories, 6) Hindu nationalism and tourism, 7) theories and methods in the study of Hinduism and the Anthropocene.

Caste and Capitalism (possible co-sponsorship with Religion and Economy Unit)

Contact: Deonnie Moodie (dmoodie@ou.edu)

This session seeks papers on the relationship between caste and capitalism, exploring the ways that the phenomena and structures of caste have been and are used in modernity to advance the material aims of capitalism. Papers may consider things such as how new caste formations have been created and leveraged in capitalist contexts, as well as how anti-caste thought and activist responses to capitalism.

Educating Hindus

Contact: Shana Sippy (shana.sippy@centre.edu)

This panel seeks papers that explore the rituals, pedagogies, philosophies, and politics of Hindu education in modernity. What are the modes, methods, and aims of Hindu inculcation in different contexts, whether in South Asia or diaspora? How have new technologies and modes of education (bala vihars, camps, youth groups, Gita competitions, virtual platforms) transformed modes of making Hindus? 

Teaching Introduction to Hinduism: A Roundtable and/or Workshop

Contact: Sowparnika Balaswaminathan (sowparnika.nathan@concordia.ca)

This session seeks to explore novel pedagogical approaches to Introduction to Hinduism. In particular, the panel wishes to consider how Introduction to Hinduism (and related courses) can best incorporate the experiences of diasporic communities, as well as the challenges posed by Hindu nationalism.  

Sacred Texts in the Field of Hindu Studies

Contact: Shana Sippy (shana.sippy@centre.edu)

As scholars, we all have those texts that scholars return to again and again. The books with dogeared pages, with endless marginalia, the books that are cited over and over again. This roundtable seeks to explore what those books are for scholars of Hinduism. We seek panelists who want to explore why particular books have a kind of sacred status, what has enabled them to endure and where they fall short. In considering the sacred canon of Hindu Studies, we also hope panelists will consider what it means to expand the canon and how new questions in the field—whether about such things as class, feminism, caste studies, race, lived religion, ethnography, colonialism, etc.—have prompted canonical reevaluation and even the rejection of sacred texts. 

Mapping and Religious Meaning Making in Hinduism (possible co-sponsorship with the Arts, Religion, and Literature Unit)

Contact: George Pati (george.pati@valpo.edu)

This panel seeks to explore a variety of religious cartographies or mappings in Hindu texts and contexts. While mapping is often viewed as a type of pragmatic political or spatial practice, these papers taken together demonstrate ways that map-making functions also as a religious practice, at least in some Hindu texts and lived environments both in India and in the diaspora. 

Bollywood, Hindutva, and Pedagogy (possible co-sponsorship with SARI, Religion, Media, and Culture Unit)

Contact: Francesca Chubb-Confer (fchubbco@oberlin.edu)

This roundtable seeks to explore how Bollywood films can be used in classes to teach about contemporary iterations and narratives of Hindutva, as well as portrayals of other forms of political and non-political religion in South Asia. 

Towards a Comparative Study of Female Devotional Exemplars (“Saints”) from South Asia.

Contact: Karen Pechilis (kpechili@drew.edu)

We seek scholars who have performed detailed study of historical female saints from South Asia, religion location open. Female saints are of enduring interest to scholars, teachers, and students because they are vibrantly related to poetry, song, life story, and the arts and because they direct attention to the analysis of women and gender in the study of religion. This panel seeks to bring together scholars who are performing detailed study of specific historical female saints in order to leverage that new information to rethink the terms of past comparative analysis and its assumptions about women, gender, and devotion, and to identify its implications for theorizing devotion generally today. The group will together decide what aspect of freedom (the AAR 2025 theme) to emphasize in the comparison. 

Fieldwork Entanglements in Today’s India

Contact: Emilia Bachrach (ebachrac@oberlin.edu)

This roundtable panel invites ethnographers (and those working with related methodologies) working in India (but also in relationship to India, based elsewhere, including in the US) to reflect on recent shifts they have experienced in the research process, especially vis-a-vis increased efforts by the BJP government (namely, since 2014) to quiet voices in (seeming) opposition to Hindu Nationalist narratives about India's history and religious landscapes. Questions we invite potential panelists to consider include, but are not limited to, how ethnographers' social positions (e.g., perceived caste, race, national, and gender identities) have been received differently in recent years by interlocutors (and/or state officials involved in granting visas and research permissions) and how researchers have had to rethink methodologies in order to protect themselves, but also their conservation partners, particularly those in marginalized social positions. Roundtable contributors will have an option to have their papers/comments presented anonymously by Hinduism Unit committee members or others.

Lived Hinduism in Diaspora

Contact: Justin Grosnick (jgrosnick@ses.gtu.edu)

From the early South Asian movements into Southeast Asia to its more recent ventures to Africa, the Americas, and Europe, Hinduism continues to become not only a more global tradition, but one of even greater diversity. Looking to the Hindu diaspora, this panel addresses how Hindu traditions take on new lives as they shift between locales and cultures--and amongst people--outside of South Asia. We invite scholars to offer papers on how Hindu traditions are re-presented, re-embodied, or how they expand and intermingle with the people, materials, and cultures they find. We hope such reflections will shed new light and understanding on the term “Hinduism” and what it means as a term used in dialogue between devotees outside and within South Asia.

Politics and Positionality in the Hindu Studies Classroom

Contact: Jenn Ortegren: (jennortegren@gmail.com)

This roundtable will consider how the politics and/or political commitments of our students—as they become known to us or are assumed by us—may reshape our teaching in ways that may feel productive and/or problematic. Imagined largely as a pedagogy roundtable, we can use this space to share experiences, insights, and strategies as well as questions and concerns about addressing politics and positionality in the contemporary classroom. . 

World-Affirming Liberative Hindu Theologies

Contact: Charissa Jaeger-Sanders (cjaeger-sanders@ses.gtu.edu)

In keeping with the 2025 Presidential Theme of “Freedom,” how is the theological concept mokṣa, which comes from the Sanskrit verbal root √muc, which is often translated as “to free, to release,” understood? What might it look like to have world-affirming liberative Hindu theologies that celebrate mokṣa that includes freedom and justice for not only humanity here and now but also for the more than human realm?

Nature as Sacred: The Role of Hindu Practices in Promoting Environmental Conservation  

Contact: Somya Ayyar (sowmyaayyar.bhuphd@gmail.com)

This panel seeks to build upon previous panels exploring the relationship between Hindu traditions and environmentalism, particularly in light of the climate crisis. Papers may include the role of Hindu rituals and philosophies in advancing sustainability and conservation.

Theistic Hinduism: Conceptions of the Divine in Contemporary Hinduism

Contact: Jess Navarette (jess.navarette@bc.edu)

This panel seeks proposals and papers that represent contemporary Hindu traditions which have a theistic focus (non-Advaitic traditions).  What is the concept of "God" in a particular strain of Hinduism, and how does it vary from others?  How does it reconcile the pantheon of Hindu Deities and scriptures?  What are the authorities and interpretations that inform this tradition?  This panel seeks a diverse representation from scholars and/or practitioners to give voice to various traditions in an inter-Hindu discourse.

The Languages of Hinduism

Contact: Manasicha Akepiyapornchai (ma.ake@austin.utexas.edu) 

This panel seeks to highlight the many languages of Hinduism beyond Sanskrit and the primary vernaculars of academic study. Seeking papers that study Hinduism through the lens of regional or vernacular languages that are less frequently studied.The Languages of Hinduism: This panel seeks to highlight the many languages of Hinduism beyond Sanskrit and the primary vernaculars of academic study. Seeking papers that study Hinduism through the lens of regional or vernacular languages that are less frequently studied.