Hinduism in the Anthropocene

In recent decades, the Anthropocene—the proposed geological epoch defined by the rise of the “human” as a geophysical agent capable of causing large scale shifts in climate patterns—has emerged as a frontier for humans, non-humans, and the humanities. How might the study of Hinduism contribute to ongoing debates about the Anthropocene? Can thinking from the edges of the Anthropocene—polluted rivers, oceans and oil spills, drought-prone deserts—and rethinking mythological tales of collective death and transformation provide new ways of understanding Hindu concepts and communities in a world shaped by climate crises, conspiracy theories, extraction, and development? This panel offers ethnographic analyses of Hindu communities’ relationships with and responses to climate crises and conservation efforts in Nepal, Guyana, and New York, anthropological engagement with the emergence of conspiracy theories about climate change in India, and textual explorations of extinction, collective death, and epochal consciousness in the Upanishads and the Mahābhārata.