Mahabharata and Classical Hinduism Seminar
In its fifth year, the Mahābhārata and Classical Hinduism Seminar invites proposals on a wide array of topics, which might also integrate the President's theme for the year, "Freedom". Welcome are discussions of class, caste, and slavery; God, gods, and goodness; gender, sex, and asceticism; as well as Mahābhārata and pedagogy. How does the Mahābhārata teach? How do we teach the Mahābhārata? We encourage proposals on a range of these and other interests, prioritizing those who did not present in the preceding year (2024).
The Mahābhārata and Classical Hinduism Seminar seeks to facilitate the academic exchange so necessary to progress through a format similar to a workshop, with pre-circulated papers. This seminar will bring together philologists, Indologists, ethnographers, scholars of performance theory and practices, and generalists taking on the daunting task of incorporating India’s great epic into their coursework on Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, or Yoga. Over the course of the five-year seminar, we hope that these varied approaches will prove mutually illuminating and raise new questions. The seminar’s scope includes not only the Sanskrit text, but also dramatic and fictional retellings, regional and vernacular versions, etc. We will select papers by asking the following four questions, which will change somewhat according to each year’s topic: Does the paper shine a new light on some previously underappreciated aspect, episode, character, or form of the epic? Does the paper either represent or respond to the most current trends and arguments in Mahābhārata studies? Does the paper help to demystify the Mahābhārata, helping non-specialists who are intimidated by its length and complexity to incorporate it into their teaching or scholarship? Does the paper provide a model for interdisciplinary practice (e.g., Does it bridge the gap between philology and new forms of critical textual analysis or between ethnography and history of religions?).