The Hinduism Unit invites contributions on the following topics suggested at the 2022 Annual Meeting as well as on other topics consistent with the Unit’s Statement of Purpose. Proposals of complete papers sessions and roundtable sessions are especially welcome, as are proposals that specify creative and efficient uses of the 90-minute and 120-minute sessions that will make up the entirety of the Unit’s programming for the 2023 Annual Meeting. For further information about potential sessions on the topics already suggested, please e-mail the points of contact for each topic listed below:
New Books in Hindu Studies
Sohini Pillai, sohini.pillai@kzoo.edu
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 fill out this brief survey: https://forms.gle/NGb7w8WSV8FidX1Q6.
Diasporic Dimensions of Hindu Traditions
Bhakti Mamtora, bmamtora@wooster.edu
Possible co-sponsorship with the North American Hinduism Unit
This panel invites papers that analyze the making of modern Hindu diasporas. In particular, the panel welcomes papers that investigate (1) trans-generational conceptions of and relationships with “homelands” and (2) the role of networks in shaping multi-directional flows of religious ideas.
Digital Humanities and the Study of Hinduism
Ute Huesken, huesken@uni-heidelberg.de
Possible co-sponsorship with the South Asian Religions Unit
The methods and techniques of Digital Humanities are increasingly reshaping the manner in which established areas of research are carried out. Use of digital applications and electronic equipments is ushering a new era for the study of Hinduism as well. These rapid advancements necessitate a careful and thorough assessment of the desirability, as also possible concerns, of employing them and call for a judicious integration of the new techniques in the workflow of the study of Hinduism, including, for example, the editing of manuscripts. The main aim of this session is to review and revise the study of Hinduism and of South Asian manuscripts in the context of the fast-evolving discipline of Digital Humanities.
Fieldwork and Ethnography in Modi’s India
Emilia Bachrach, ebachrac@oberlin.edu
This roundtable invites ethnographers working in India to reflect on recent shifts they have experienced in the research process, especially vis-a-vis increased efforts by the BJP government (esp. 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, 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 had to rethink methodologies in order to protect ethnographers themselves, but also their conservation partners, particularly those in marginalized positions.
Harnessing Our Scholarly Privilege and Power for Public Good: Reproductive Justice and Religion
Shana Sippy (shana.sippy@centre.edu) and Michal Raucher (michal.raucher@rutgers.edu)
With particular awareness of the AAR's presence in Texas (or wherever we may be), this call for proposals seeks to respond directly to the realities of a post-Dobbs America. We hope to bring together scholars who work in a range of regions and on different religious traditions in order to share their knowledge and comparative perspectives that will deepen our understanding of the issues surrounding reproductive justice. In the planning phase, we seek to gather together scholars and activists who wish to think through and prepare some type of public program on the issue of Reproductive Justice for the annual meeting. We anticipate this session will be jointly sponsored by a number of different units and, depending on the response, may involve multiple sessions or additional programming.
Hinduism and Climate
Vijaya Nagarajan, nagarajan@usfca.edu
This panel wishes to explore the many interlinkages between Hinduism as a field of study and the current climate chaos. Are there worldviews from within the long history of what we have come to understand as Hinduism that could be repurposed to help conceptualize, reframe, resolve, and solve the current carbon dilemmas in the atmosphere and elsewhere? Are there understandings that could serve to do the opposite—to accelerate and worsen the current climate crisis? How do Hindu notions of caste, race, sexuality, gender, and the natural world influence multiple rivers of contemporary Hindu communities’ responses to the collapsing environment in India and elsewhere? Hoping to bridge the phenomenon of melting Himalayan glaciers, and the increasing floods and drought throughout India and the world, this panel wishes to illuminate possible bridges between various research areas of Hinduism and the increasingly chaotic warming world.
Hinduism and Disability
Nicole Karapanagiotis, nicole.karapanagiotis@rutgers.edu
In this panel, we invite papers that critically reflect on discourses of disability within the Hindu traditions. We particularly welcome papers that examine issues of marginalization and stigma as well as papers that reflect on discourses of normalcy and ableism, and the religio-social factors involved in their production. Papers that examine conceptions of the body more broadly within the Hindu traditions are also welcome.
Leader Succession Practices in Hinduism
Contact: Avni Chag, ac158@soas.ac.uk
Seldom is an institution as fragile as when the founder or leader has died, especially if there is uncertainty and disagreement over succession. Histories of religious succession are, in particular, riddled with controversy, scandal, and dispute. If a deceased founder or leader has not arranged for his succession, and in some cases even if he has, what determines who is next in line to lead?
This panel invites papers that address the topic of leader succession within Hindu communities both historically and within contemporary institutions. How is succession determined within Hindu religious discourses? What models of leader succession exist and how are these enacted? How have disputes been resolved and how have disputes effected the future direction, values, and identity of a given religious tradition?
Textual Authority in Hindu Traditions
John Nemec, nemec@virginia.edu
It is well known that Hindu traditions array a vast assortment of authoritative textual works and formally count them as authoritative by differing measures and with disparate ranges of applicability. This panel asks the questions, "how are religious texts imbued with normative authority in Hindu traditions, and how does Hinduism understand textual authority in a textually pluralistic context?" Panelists may wish to examine types of scriptural (or other forms of textual) authority in Hindu traditions; the role of genre therein; the positioning of oral traditions in textual production and use; arguments for divine and/or human sanction in the formation of textual authority; the role of textual authority in shaping movements of protest within Hinduism; the role of gender in shaping models of textual authority; caste-status and textual authority; philosophical claims for scriptural legitimacy; or other concerns. Please be in touch if the proposed panel's theme, broadly conceived, is of interest and if you would like to contribute to its formation, which is ongoing.
Harnessing Our Scholarly Privilege and Power for Public Good: Reproductive Justice and Religion
Shana Sippy (shana.sippy@centre.edu)
With particular awareness of the AAR’s presence in Texas, this session seeks to respond directly to the realities of a post-Dobbs America. We hope to bring together scholars who work in a range of regions and on different religious traditions in order to share their knowledge and comparative perspectives to deepen our understanding of the issues surrounding reproductive justice. In the planning phase, we seek to gather together scholars and activists who wish to think through and prepare some type of public program on the issue of Reproductive Justice for the annual meeting. We anticipate this session will be jointly sponsored by a number of different units and, depending on the response, may involve multiple sessions or additional programming.
"Trads": Masculinity Hate Politics in Transnational South Asian Contexts
Potential co-sponsorship between North American Hinduism, Men, Masculinities, and Religions, Hinduism, and South Asian Religions Units
This panel explores the hate politics, purity discourses, and identitarian grounding of groups that describe themselves as “Trads” or Traditionalists which operate in transnational contexts. While members of this group reject the Indian Constitution as a Western construct, many of its symbols are imported from the West—the white supremacist Alt-Right in the United States.
