In-person November Annual Meeting 2025 Program Book

In contemporary Thailand, wish making rituals are becoming more popular, and attract many visitors to temples. These rituals stand out because there is no monastic intervention needed. A case study in Chiang Mai city highlights the significance of such lay-led aspirational rituals. The Ganesh ritual at Wat Pa Daed is complex and intricate, requiring participants to follow multiple steps across the temple. For Thai Buddhists, the ritual offers a means to fulfill personal desires through the intervention of an unseen being in the Buddhist cosmos. By translating and analyzing the ritual’s detailed steps, interviewing the senior monk who designed it, and applying ritual theory and perspectives on popular religion, this presentation demonstrates how such practices hold value within the Buddhist landscape and adapt to modern, personalized religious environments.

On 28 May 2022, a reported 10,000 people gathered at the Miners Welfare Park in the small English town of Bedworth for the ceremonial burning of a vast wooden COVID-19 memorial named ‘Sanctuary’. The project borrowed directly from practices at the vast Burning Man Festival in Nevada, but were transplanted into a very different cultural and social location. This paper explores how this ritual came to take place, noting the extent to which its creators stressed that its meaning should be weighed up by those in the crowd rather than imposed by the event’s organisers. It will be suggested that factors shaping this event are the decline of church influence in Britain, the transnational nature of memory cultures, and the extent to which the pandemic has produced no single mode of publicly ritualising bereavement. 

In contemporary luxury markets, overstock destruction emerges as a form of ritual suppression that conceals surplus while performing a bespoke act of power and distinction. Building on Mauss’s insights into gift exchange and Bataille’s theory of expenditure, my paper reinterprets unsold luxury goods' obliteration as a sacrificial act that expunges excess and reaffirms exclusivity. By engaging with the sociology of ritual, I demonstrate that this deliberate practice creates a unique symbolic order, simultaneously suppressing visible overabundance and challenging market norms. Through a comparative analysis grounded in ritual theory, I argue that the notion of expenditure is not merely economic but also ritualistic, serving as a critical commentary on contemporary luxury consumption. This study offers a nuanced perspective on how bespoke ritual practices in luxury not only resist commodification but also reconfigure distinction and symbolic power in modern economic life.

The Binding of Isaac has held a central place in Judaism since Antiquity, but interestingly, Sarah is absent from the biblical narrative. Midrashic interpretations have filled this lacuna, and the story continued to acquire new layers of meaning in medieval Europe, especially following the First Crusade. Jews who chose death over forced conversion were often depicted as Isaac, and stories of parents killing their children to prevent their Christianization related to Abraham. Sarah, on the one hand, suffers and dies in response to Abraham’s actions, revealing similarities to midrashim as well as Mary’s response to the Crucifixion. On the other hand, despite her pain, she accepts God’s request to sacrifice her beloved son.

This paper will explore this innovative interpretation within medieval and early modern Ashkenazi texts, in both Hebrew and (understudied) Yiddish sources. In particular, the Ashkenazi portrayal of Sarah will be compared with that of the Virgin Mary.

This paper examines Sarah’s maternal role in Bene Israel songs of the Binding of Isaac, where she emerges as a repository of emotion, a divine protector, and an absent yet enduring presence. Drawing on Marathi Jewish texts from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—composed in verse and influenced by Hindu, Christian, Muslim, and secular musical traditions—the author explores how Sarah’s absence from the biblical Akedah is reinterpreted through song and performance. These adaptations, shaped by South Asia’s multireligious milieu, draw on lyrical tropes of longing central to regional devotional and secular traditions. Through close literary analysis, musicological study, and ethnographic research with Bene Israel women in Bombay, this paper argues that song and performance were not ancillary to Bene Israel religious life but central to shaping scriptural interpretation, gender roles, and community identity in the context of Indian nationalism and Jewish diaspora consciousness.

This paper examines the mythical figure of Sarah as a maternal symbol in mystical ritual and the earthly experience of the Sabbatian Ma’aminim—followers of Sabbatai Tsvi (1626–1676), one of the most prominent Jewish messiahs, who converted to Islam in his footsteps and established secret communities in the Ottoman Empire.

Among nineteenth-century Sabbatian remnants, Sarah is depicted as a maternal cosmic force of redemption, intertwined with female community members and mothers. This paper explores the relationship between the mystical-theological elevation of her motherhood and actual gender structures through an analysis of clandestine, multilingual Sabbatian ritual songs, depictions of daily life, and Muslim-Jewish interfaith interactions. It examines divine and human Sabbatian mothers and how emotional expressions of motherhood were shaped through the community’s performative devotional practice. Ultimately, this case study raises broader questions about how mystical traditions reconfigure gendered symbolism and how theological innovation interacts with communal realities.

The Ghost Dance Movement is historically and culturally complex and open to misrepresentation and misinterpretation. This partly stems from the Ghost Dance’s discursive association with the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 as a result of the governmental response to the movement. Misunderstood and mis-framed by the government at the time, the Ghost Dance movement did not end with that massacre, but expanded in subsequent years and has appeared again in the twentieth century (Warren 2017; Wenger 2009; Kehoe 2006). Instead of being understood as an effort on the part of the Ghost Dancers to address their conditions using the ritual actions of their past, the entire popular record of the Ghost Dance emphasizes this violent “end,” while obfuscating the ongoing presence of indigenous people, dance, and cosmovision in the United States continuing to today. 

This paper examines the production of the distinction between religion and medicine as it pertains to peyote consumption in colonial New Spain and the United States. I posit that whether peyote consumption was considered to be a religious or a secular activity was deeply influenced by the gender of the practitioner. This paper is an exploration toward a theory of Indigenous medicine and healing, centering Indigenous women working with peyote in two radically different time periods. 

This paper examines the question of ‘Being’ as it pertains to the cultural life of the Delaware Tribe of Indians. A cultural life that many in the tribe perceive to be at the precipice of dissolution as a unique, coherent entity. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it seeks to understand the "authentic" and "inauthentic" responses to this existential situation and the manner in which Delaware people variously either express or perform their ontological make-up as something specifically Delaware and (attempt to) uphold attendant commitments or, conversely, are thought to be falling back upon and conforming to popular public settler-colonial representations of “being Indian” or subscribing to a homogenizing pan-Indianism.  

This study utilizes accounts of indigenous sweetgrass practices and myths in anthropological and religious studies fields to evaluate how indigenous approaches serve to expand Western ethical imagination around plants and ecological preservation. Indigenous harvesting practices and uses of sweetgrass are embedded in sacred myths and assumptions about the interconnectivity between humanity and plants. In this interconnection, plants and humans are envisioned to be in a sacred relationship of symbiotic mutuality. This study examines how harvesting practices contrast with dominant Western secular and religious paradigms of ecological ethics in approaches to plant replenishing. Initial studies regarding sweetgrass indicate that traditional indigenous approaches of human-plant relationality through sacred harvesting have proved more effective than predominant ecological approaches of not harvesting in promoting plant replenishment. Indigenous stories and practices challenge common Western paradigms of ecological preservation and potentially promote the rights of plant-life. 

Despite wide-ranging scholarship over the last three decades, the development of tantric Buddhism out of fully-developed Mahāyāna contexts in ancient India remains unclear. The very use of the terms “tantric” vs. “esoteric” Buddhism, particularly in reference to this nascent period, also continues to create controversy. It is therefore critical to ask: what characterizes an object as “tantric" in Mahāyāna visual culture? And further, what role should texts play in interpreting “tantric” subjects in visual material? This paper presents a multi-site visual milieu—sculptural programs within the western Deccan rock-cut cave monasteries of Nāsik and Kānherī—as evidence of the emergence of early esotericism in the late fifth to sixth centuries CE. A comparison of tantric ritual manuals of the kriyā and caryā classes to earlier in situ imagery reveals a three-dimensional mandala depicting early mantra families (kulas) together with the reverence of female deities who embodied mantras in on-the-ground practice.

This proposal seeks to explore the key Tantric objects used in the Kālikākrama, a powerful and esoteric Tantric tradition within Śākta practices centered on the worship of the goddess Kali. Known for embodying destruction, transformation, and liberation, Kali is the focal point of transformative rituals that connect practitioners to her energy. The study will focus on the symbolic meanings, functional roles, and deeper spiritual connections of these sacred objects used in Kālikākrama rituals. By analyzing these tools, the research aims to highlight how they facilitate communion with the divine feminine and guide practitioners towards spiritual liberation.

What is the point of ringing a bell at the entrance to a temple? Jains have a unique answer to this question: ringing a bell protects the temple through the sounding of mantras. In many Jain temples, yantras, or tantric diagrams, are inscribed on these bells to send apotropaic messages into the world with each ring. This paper examines this unstudied ritual use of yantras by looking at the history of the Jain deity Ghaṇṭākarṇa Mahāvīra, whose nineteenth-century Śvetāmbara shrine in Mahudi, Gujarat, is one of the most popular temples in India, especially around Diwali. Examining rituals to Ghaṇṭākarṇa in early modern Sanskrit texts and yantras on the bells at the entrances to a few Digambara temples in north India reveals the forgotten history of Ghaṇṭākarṇa. Ghaṇṭākarṇa rose to prominence in Jainism not as a Śvetāmbara boon-giving deity, but as the focus of yantras inscribed on Digambara temple bells.

Objects of worship in Tantric ritual vary, such as iconic or aniconic murtis, or yantras, but they can also be living human bodies. Such bodies most often belong to cisgender woman and girls. While the Tantric body is typically theorized as a philosophical construction beyond gender, this paper argues for an expansion of the concept of Tantric bodies to include the feminine ritual participant who is the object or tool of ritual worship. This paper explores these Tantric objects as Tantric subjects—Tantric bodies that are explicitly gendered, and possess material agency, the power of material objects to enact effects on the world around them. Drawing on numerous Kaula texts from a wide range of periods, traditions, and locations, this paper argues for a new lens for understanding gender, power, and agency in Tantric ritual that also informs our understanding of feminine power dynamics in the broader scope of Hinduism.

Tantric rituals are foundational for understanding Tantric philosophy. Anything we can establish from complex philosophical texts we can also derive from manuals outlining Tantric rituals. Rather than only reading philosophical texts, I begin with ritual practices in Tantras, where the notion of ritual objects crosses the boundary between the sacred and profane, and at the same time, also confronts the polar divide between subject and object, engaging in philosophical reflections on the basis of ritual practices that buttress the same claims. I first focus on ritual objects that are common to any Hindu ritual, revealing the additional Tantric meaning. Then, I highlight objects that are taboo in the common Hindu ritual world. I address the ritual objects that are also subjects, sentient beings, and return the gaze to pure objects that are given subjectivity. Finally, I address objectified subjectivity and the elimination of bipolarity in the conversation on Tantric rituals.

Since the introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, many university administrators and educators across disciplines have encouraged the use of large language models (LLMs) in the classroom for the purpose of course and assignment design. However, advocates for AI in education overestimate the capabilities of LLMs in the learning process and overwhelmingly ignore the social, environmental, and epistemological consequences of AI—including plagiarism. In this paper, I critique the discourse surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education. I argue that the perceived benefits of LLMs to the process of teaching and learning are overhyped and are largely antithetical to pedagogical best practices and models. In addition to critiquing the assumptions and premises made by advocates for AI in education, I also argue that the real-world consequences of LLMs means that there is no ethical use-case for AI in higher education.

This adapted fishbowl discussion method is presented to foster student engagement, reduce anxiety, and ensure a focused, inclusive dialogue. The combination of preparatory assignments and a structured format that integrates principles from Reflective Structured Dialogue, this method emphasizes the inclusion of all voices—author and students—within a structure aimed at helping students feel more confident and prepared to participate. Students submit detailed outlines, opening statements, and discussion questions in advance, and the discussion follows a three-round format: an opening statement, personal reflections, and question introductions. A timed, focused discussion ensues, followed by a final reflection. This approach aims to create a supportive environment for deeper engagement with the material, ensuring all voices are heard, and discussions stay grounded in the content.

In the contemporary study of religion Max Weber’s well-known proclamations concerning technology, rationalization, and the disenchantment of the world are frequently cited. Often overlooked, however, is the context in which he spoke, not as a prophet, demagogue, or leader of the modern era, but as a teacher and fellow student. Ultimately, education, as Weber understands it, is an existential task that seeks to prepare the student, and the educator, to engage the challenges of the day full in the face. The inconvenient fact of the matter, for us in our day, a day further dominated by techno-rationalization within and without the classroom, is that these challenges have become all the more demanding. Employing a Weberian analysis to the educational challenges of our day, the present work seeks to question how and in which ways video game technologies might help us reenchant student learning experiences and outcomes in a university setting.

Video games provide virtual playgrounds for exploring religious identity and ethical decision making. Games like Papers, Please should replace the trolley problem and other contrived thought experiments when teaching ethics, while other games such as Indika allow players to control a character going through a crisis of faith. Gameplay demonstrations of these two games will be provided. Student reactions to these games will be described, as well as the relevant scholarship that can transform games like these from pastime activities into serious objects of scholarly study. 

This paper explores various ways instructors might approach their teaching and their students’ learning about lived Buddhism, so that they can determine which might work for their own students at their specific institutions. Framing my discussion around the seven characteristics of religious practice identified by Nancy Ammerman—embodiment, materiality, emotional, aesthetics, moral judgment, narrative structuring, and spirituality (2020, p. 9)—I show how each dimension lends itself to a particular pedagogical approach. Embodied and sensory-based learning facilitates the study of embodiment, place-based learning directs students’ attention towards materiality; affective learning strengthens their awareness of emotions; arts-based learning encourages their critical reflection about aesthetics; applied learning assists in their moral judgment; storytelling enables them to appreciate narrative structuring, and contemplative and integrative learning supports their study of spirituality.

At first glance, Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930) was no friend of the History of Religions School. He criticized it publicly and, unlike his successor to the university chair and in the “Church Father’s Commission” of the Prussian Academy, Hans Lietzmann (1875-1942), was hardly interested in religions in the environment of ancient Christianity. But what was his exact relationship with prominent representatives of this group? How did he treat their publications in the Theologische Literaturzeitung he founded and edited at a specific time? What place did he give them and their long-term editorial projects in the academy? How did this relationship change under his successor, Lietzmann, at the university, academy, and in the review journal? The paper will draw a new picture from previously unpublished sources.

This paper explores anew the theological questions and perspectives on religious experience that informed and emerged out of the work of the History of Religions School. While the School’s legacy for historical study of religions in a comparative mode is generally acknowledged (especially in the field of biblical studies), the theological orientation of the School is often regarded with more ambivalence. For scholars such as Ernst Troeltsch, however, the methods of an historical approach to the study of Christianity opened new pathways for thinking about the nature of faith that might resonate with “ordinary devout people,” as he wrote in his book on The Absoluteness of Christianity and the History of Religion. Troeltsch and other figures such as Rudolf Otto sketched models of religious experience that bear re-examination in relation to methodological trends in the field today. 

The pioneering work of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule in the study of ancient Judaism and formative Christianity garnered considerable attention from contemporary French scholars of religion. The efforts of figures such as Gunkel, Bousset, and others to extricate Judaism and Christianity from the historical-religious vacuum in which they had long been studied, paralleled the comparative approaches of liberal Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish scholars in France. However, the institutional and ideological contexts for conducting comparative religion in France and Germany were markedly different, with the French Histoire des religions closely intertwined with the laicization agenda of the Third Republic. This paper explores the scientific and theological responses of three key figures—liberal Protestant Jean Réville, Catholic Modernist Alfred Loisy, and liberal Jewish scholar Salomon Reinach—who engaged with the methods and theological underpinnings of the Schule. It also situates their work within the broader historical contexts of the Dreyfus Affair, the Modernist crisis within the Catholic Church, and the solidification of the principle of laïcité through the 1905 Separation of Churches and State.

At the turn of the twentieth century Adolf von Harnack was among the most influential theological figures in the United States. But by mid-century, his influence had seemingly declined due his role in World War I and the rise of alternative historiographical methodologies such as the History of Religions School. Did Harnack’s influence actually disappear, or did it adapt to the intellectual and social context of the United States? This paper examines how two of Harnack’s students – William Adams Brown and Arthur Cushman McGiffert, both leading figures at Union Theological Seminary – were responding to and accommodating the challenges brought by the History-of-Religions School, focusing on how they re-imagined the relationship between descriptive and normative approaches. In what ways were they reconceiving the relationship between ‘historical’ and ‘systematic’ theology? To what extent did Harnack’s influence persist? And how might this alternative account transform our understanding of the development of theology in twentieth-century America?

This paper explores Watchman Nee’s (1903–1972) martyrdom as an expression of steadfast faith and spiritual freedom under Maoist oppression, employing a comparative and interdisciplinary approach that bridges Christian and Jewish martyrdom traditions. As a church leader in China, Nee endured twenty years of imprisonment, ultimately dying in a labor camp for refusing to renounce his faith. His spirituality—rooted in prayer, biblical meditation, and “limited obedience”—offers a model of nonviolent resistance.

Drawing from Nee’s writings, prison letters, and his cellmate’s testimonies, this study examines his theology of martyrdom as active participation in Christ’s suffering (Imitatio Christi). Nee’s vision parallels Kiddush Hashem (sanctifying God’s name through martyrdom) in Jewish tradition and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology of costly grace. His resistance redefines suffering as testimony and martyrdom as spiritual freedom. This study enriches global spirituality by illustrating how a martyrdom mindset sustains faith, fosters communal resilience, and transcends boundaries in persecution.

Humor has long been used as a nonviolent tool in resisting oppression and fighting for freedom. This paper explores how humor can also serve as a liberating Christian spiritual practice, examining the work of Desmond Tutu and his collaborators both in struggling against apartheid and, more recently, in promoting an interfaith spirituality of joy. The first speaker, who worked against apartheid in South Africa, will analyze how activists like Tutu and Allan Boesak used humor to express and pursue freedom, both external and internal, despite hardship and suffering. The second speaker will consider humor as a spiritual practice in a wider, global context, particularly as shown in Tutu’s later interfaith work with the Dalai Lama and Douglas Abrams. Through Tutu’s collaborative work, humor emerges not just as a tool for political resistance, but as a spiritual practice that can sustain joy, freedom, and communal flourishing.

This paper builds on a research project with New-England based congregations to explore the role of rest and Sabbath-keeping in vocations to racial justice and repair. Since 2018, several congregations with the project have identified racial justice as a primary vocation, embodying this calling through various initiatives, including learning about racial oppression, examining ecclesial histories and problematic theologies, participating in racial equity trainings, and making financial reparations. At the same time, congregations underscore the importance of rest, both in sustaining racial justice work and as a means of reparation. Drawing on interviews and congregation-authored materials, this paper considers the vital role of rest in pursuing callings to racial justice. It begins by briefly contextualizing congregations’ racial justice journeys. It then presents key ways congregations are practicing rest as a means of renewal, resistance, and repair. It concludes by reflecting on the significance of rest in spiritualities of repair and reparation.

This paper explores how fifteenth-century Castilian mystic Teresa de Cartagena understands the Eucharist as a sacrifice of asceticism and abundance. As a nun in the sonically-fluent liturgical context of a Cistercian convent, she wrote Grove of the Infirm, which outlines her theology of suffering via her experience of deafness. In conversation with scholars of medieval theology and the Eucharist, this paper will: 1) examine Teresa’s theological deployment of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and the Lukan Great Feast, and 2) demonstrate how this sacramentality argues for a transformation of creaturely consumption. In an era when our excessive consumption impinges on the flourishing of creaturely life, Teresa understands sacrifice as both costly and nourishing; as profoundly ascetic and feastly. Ultimately, this essay proposes that Teresa’s Eucharistic imagination lends an important framework for participating in the asceticism and abundance of Christ's sacrifice, which compels communion with God and with one another. 

I offer a textual analysis of the digital presence of Progressive Asian American Christians (PAAC)—their Facebook group, website, online magazine, podcasts, and news media, and supplement this with ethnographic research from IRB-approved interviews with key participants including leadership and “lay” members in the community. I argue the relationship between race and religion for Asians in the U.S. diaspora materializes as a particular mode of resistance rooted in notions of citizenship and freedom, indeed, for participants of PAAC. Here, I theorize the ways in which this group of Asian American Christians as specifically “progressive” is an example of formation and transformation through their adversarial position in relationship to Asian American religious identities that are conservative and evangelical Protestant.  In this analysis I highlight the following themes: a spiritual homelessness, the theo-political language of affirmation, the inverted identity of religious-but-not-spiritual, and the significance of the formation of a (digital) sanctuary movement.  

The growing prevalence of anti-feminist and misogynistic ideologies among young men, both in the U.S. and globally, reflects their perceived sense of unfreedom in contemporary gender discourse. In South Korea, the emergence of idaenam(men in their twenties) exemplifies this trend, as many perceive themselves as victims of gendered restrictions. Despite extensive sociological analysis, theological engagement with their self-alienation remains scarce, particularly within ecclesial contexts. This paper employs digital ethnography to examine online spaces that shape harmful gender narratives and explores how pastoral theology can provide interventions that foster self-reflection, relational healing, and gender justice. By integrating theological reflection with ecclesial practice, this study reimagines freedom as a path toward gender equality, challenges the unfreedom imposed by restrictive gender norms, and proposes concrete pastoral strategies to restore self-cohesion, promote gender equity, and cultivate inclusive faith communities where young men can engage in transformative relationships by transgressing entrenched gender boundaries.

My qualitative research explores the experiences of Korean women ministers leading predominantly white congregations in North America. These women transition into white-dominant churches as a quest for freedom from the constraints of Korean churches, where women’s roles in ministry are limited. Their experiences resonate with Sang Hyun Lee’s concept of freedom in From a Liminal Place, where Asian American women feel liberated from patriarchal norms in their home countries.

While they find greater autonomy in North America, these ministers face challenges related to their racial, cultural, and immigrant status. They are often seen as “strangers,” and the language and cultural barriers complicate their sense of freedom. Despite these challenges, they use their cultural differences as a source of preaching authority, resisting colonial norms and offering a decolonial, justice-oriented theological vision. This research advocates for a new homiletical model that embraces the voices of marginalized preachers and enhances their ministries.

This presentation examines the relationship between complementarian theology, purity culture, and responses to sexual abuse within the Biblical Mennonite Alliance (BMA). I first analyze two BMA publications influenced by the conservative Evangelical Danvers Statement, exploring how gender roles shape views on sexuality, modesty, and culpability in sexual violence. I then examine how this framework informs church responses to abuse, drawing on a 2024 GRACE investigation of a BMA church that uncovered multiple perpetrators and leadership failures. The report highlights how gendered power dynamics silence victims and prioritize male authority. Ultimately, I argue that purity culture constrains freedom, fosters silence, and perpetuates violence, while exposing its abuses can help ecclesial bodies counter marginalization and empower women and abuse survivors with the freedom to speak.

The Yogapradīpa, a medieval Jain yoga text, survives in two distinct recensions: a shorter version (90 verses) and a longer version (142 or 143 verses). While the longer recension is attested in many manuscripts, two early 16th-century manuscripts containing bālāvabodha (vernacular) commentaries preserve only the short recension, suggesting that it had a distinct role in monastic education. This paper examines three key printed editions: the 1911 Hindi edition, which references 143 verses but omits verses 67–99; a multi-text edition that ends at verse 90, confirming the short recension’s circulation in print; and the 1960 Gujarati edition, which selects the longer recension (143 verses) based on seven manuscripts. These versions raise important questions about textual transmission, manuscript versus print culture, and shifting notions of authenticity in Jain yoga. By analyzing which verses were omitted or added, this study explores how different manuscript and printed traditions shaped competing definitions of “real” Jain yoga.

This paper explores discourses surrounding the authenticity of yoga within Jain intellectual traditions, focusing on the works of Haribhadra (6th–8th century) and Yaśovijaya (1624–1688). These thinkers positioned their yoga practices as the "true" or "authentic" form in juxtaposition with other religious traditions. By categorizing practitioners based on their capabilities and progress in yoga practice, their texts reflect hierarchical judgments and reinforce Jain identity. I examine Haribhadra’s classifications of yogins across various works and investigate how Yaśovijaya expands on these ideas, offering original translations. Both authors emphasize avañcaka-yoga ("authentic yoga") as the final stage in yoga practice, achieved through purification resulting from adherence to Jain ethical precepts and ascetic disciplines. I show how they engaged with broader intellectual currents while firmly situating their systematizations of yoga within Jain soteriology and Jain karma doctrine.

This paper examines a variety of “authenticity discourses” about the figure of the Indian yogi that were circulating from the mid-19th to early-20th century, exploring how different representations of the yogi-fakir shed light on the contested, dialogical construction of Western and Indian modernities.  Were yogis representative of an authentic Indian cultural essence (and how so)?  What sorts of yogis were “real” yogis (and what sort were fakes)? Were yogis genuine possessors of occult powers or were they charlatans? These questions, and the competing authenticity claims that emerged in answers to them, were never as simple as they seemed on the surface, but were intimately tied to larger political and social agendas, ethical value judgments, and even metaphysical assertions about the nature of reality.  Debates about the authenticity of the yogi were part and parcel of constitutively “modern” local and global negotiations regarding “religion,” “science,” and “magic” in this period.

This paper analyzes the topic of "authenticity" in Bāul-Fakiri musical contexts, specifically on how the authentic fakir or sadhu is constructed in both emic and etic discourses. Special attention is given to how the yoga of breath-work and other related practices contributes to the perceived authenticity of fakirs or sadhus in these discourses. The paper begins by setting the stage of the world of sadhus, including the place of Bāul-Fakirs within it. It then shifts to discussion of how "Musical Language Worlds" facilitated the emergence of another kind of Bāul-Fakiri sadhu who makes use of sound and music. The paper then shifts to consider an emic example of authenticity by Lalon Fakir, the first line of which is "Stop Faking and Follow the Fakir Way" (phereb cheṛe karo phakiri). The final part of the paper contrasts these emic indicators of authenticity with etic authenticators often imposed from outside.

Based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, this paper explores American spiritual seekers who, having started doing yoga for any number of reasons, decide to “go deeper” into their practice. This is a context of not only postural practice, but also mantra, devotional singing, festival-going, astrology, and murti-puja, among others. Despite appearances to the contrary, such cultural borrowing or appropriation is rarely as hodgepodge as it initially seems. Rather, there is a guiding principle that shapes the contours of individual choice: authenticity. That is, spiritual seekers in the yoga world “go deeper” both by adopting “authentic” practices, and by choosing practices that feel personally “authentic.” But what does this mean? Authentic to what? And to whom? In this paper, I address how the effort of “going deeper”–both its associated practices, and the rhetoric around it–is navigated through a multi-faceted discourse about what counts as “authentic.”