CO-SPONSORSHIP: Comparative Studies in Religion Unit and South Asian Religions Unit

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