South Asian Studies

South Asian Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of South Asia about their new books.

Ketaki Chowkhani, "The Limits of Sexuality Education: Love, Sex, and Adolescent Masculinities in Urban India" (Routledge, 2024)

May 13, 2024

The Limits of Sexuality Education

Ketaki Chowkhani

The Limits of Sexuality Education: Love, Sex, and Adolescent Masculinities in Urban India (Routledge, 2024) explores different strands of thinking abo…

Karen Pechilis et al. ed., "Devotional Visualities: Seeing Bhakti in Indic Material Cultures" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

May 9, 2024

Devotional Visualities

Karen Pechilis, Amy-Ruth Holt et al. ed.
Hosted by Raj Balkaran

Devotional Visualities: Seeing Bhakti in Indic Material Cultures (Bloomsbury, 2023) is the first to focus on material visualities of bhakti imagery th…

Hemjyoti Medhi, "Gendered Publics: Chandraprava Saikiani and the Mahila Samiti in Colonial Assam" (Oxford UP, 2024)

May 8, 2024

Gendered Publics

Hemjyoti Medhi

Gendered Publics: Chandraprava Saikiani and the Mahila Samiti in Colonial Assam (Oxford UP, 2024) is a first-of-its-kind comprehensive appraisal of th…

Sreeparna Chattopadhyay, "The Gravity of Hope" (Crossed Arrows, 2023)

May 6, 2024

The Gravity of Hope

Sreeparna Chattopadhyay

Sreeparna Chattopadhyay's book The Gravity of Hope (Crossed Arrows, 2023) is a non-fictional account of women’s lives who sometimes endured, often res…

Richard M. Jaffe, "Seeking Sakyamuni: South Asia in the Formation of Modern Japanese Buddhism" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

May 5, 2024

Seeking Sakyamuni

Richard M. Jaffe
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

Though fascinated with the land of their tradition’s birth, virtually no Japanese Buddhists visited the Indian subcontinent before the nineteenth cent…

Fauzia Husain, "The Stigma Matrix: Gender, Globalization, and the Agency of Pakistan's Frontline Women" (Stanford UP, 2024)

May 3, 2024

The Stigma Matrix

Fauzia Husain
Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu

As developing states adopt neoliberal policies, more and more working-class women find themselves pulled into the public sphere. They are pressed into…

Nancy M. Martin, "Mirabai: The Making of a Saint" (Oxford UP, 2023)

May 2, 2024

Mirabai

Nancy M. Martin
Hosted by Raj Balkaran

Mirabai, an iconic sixteenth-century Indian poet-saint, is renowned for her unwavering love of God, her disregard for social hierarchies and gendered …

Mohamed Shafeeq Karinkurayil, "The Gulf Migrant Archives in Kerala: Reading Borders and Belonging" (Oxford UP, 2024)

May 1, 2024

The Gulf Migrant Archives in Kerala

Mohamed Shafeeq Karinkurayil
Hosted by Khadeeja Amenda

The Indian state of Kerala is one of the largest blocs of migrants in the oil economies of the Arab Gulf. Looking closely at the cultural archives p…

Kenneth R. Valpey, "Cow Care in Hindu Animal Ethics" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)

April 30, 2024

Cow Care in Hindu Animal Ethics

Kenneth R. Valpey
Hosted by Raj Balkaran

What does cow care in India have to offer modern Western discourse animal ethics? Why are cows treated with such reverence in the Indian context? Join…

Jason Birch, "The Amaraugha and Amaraughaprabodha of Goraksanatha" (Institut Francais de Pondichery, 2024)

April 29, 2024

The Amaraugha and Amaraughaprabodha of Goraksanatha

Jason Birch
Hosted by Kshitij Jain

The Lineage of Immortals (Sanskrit Amaraugha) is the earliest account of a fourfold system of yoga in which a physical practice called Haṭha is taught…

Tarana Husain Khan et al., "Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia" (Pan Macmillan, 2023)

April 28, 2024

Forgotten Foods

Tarana Husain Khan, Claire Chambers and Siobhan Lambert-Hurley
Hosted by Shobhana Xavier

Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia (Pan Macmillan India, 2023) is a collection of essays and recipes that highlights the com…

India Votes 2024

April 26, 2024

India Votes 2024

Arild Engelsen Ruud and Francesca Jensenius

What is at stake at the 2024 Indian national elections? And, what can we expect if the incumbent prime minister Narendra Modi wins another five years …

Mukund Padmanabhan, "The Great Flap of 1942: How the Raj Panicked over a Japanese Non-invasion (Vintage Books, 2024)

April 25, 2024

The Great Flap of 1942

Mukund Padmanabhan
Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

In April 1942, at least half a million people fled the city of Madras, now known as Chennai. The reason? The British, after weeks of growing unease ab…

Purushottama Bilimoria et al., "Contemplative Studies and Jainism: Meditation, Prayer, and Veneration" (Routledge, 2023)

April 25, 2024

Contemplative Studies and Jainism

Purushottama Bilimoria, Cogen Bohanec, and Rita D. Sherma
Hosted by Raj Balkaran

Contemplative Studies and Jainism: Meditation, Prayer, and Veneration (Routledge, 2023) is one of the first wide-ranging academic surveys of the maj…

Sudev Sheth, "Bankrolling Empire: Family Fortunes and Political Transformation in Mughal India" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

April 24, 2024

Bankrolling Empire

Sudev Sheth
Hosted by Arighna Gupta

In this colorful book, historian Sudev Sheth traces how a family of diamond dealers deployed wealth to play off political leaders and survive the coll…

Arsalan Khan, "The Promise of Piety: Islam and the Politics of Moral Order in Pakistan" (Cornell UP, 2024)

April 19, 2024

The Promise of Piety

Arsalan Khan
Hosted by Shobhana Xavier

The Promise of Piety: Islam and the Politics of Moral Order in Pakistan (Cornell University Press, 2024) by Arsalan Khan is an incisive ethnographic s…

Robert P. Goldman and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, "The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki: The Complete English Translation" (Princeton UP, 2022)

April 18, 2024

The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki

Robert P. Goldman and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman
Hosted by Raj Balkaran

The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, the monumental Sanskrit epic of the life of Rama, ideal man and incarnation of the great god Visnu, has profoundly affected t…

Sanskrit Study: A Conversation with Antonia Ruppel

April 12, 2024

Sanskrit Study

Antonia Ruppel
Hosted by Raj Balkaran

A candid conversation with renowned Sanskritist and online teacher Antonia Ruppel on her love of the language, teaching philosophy, views on academia,…

Miss Tibet: Representing Tibet through Beauty Pageants

April 12, 2024

Miss Tibet: Representing Tibet through Beauty Pageants

Pema Choedon

What does the Miss Tibet beauty pageant tell us about what it means to be Tibetan in a globalized world? And what understandings of Tibetan culture do…

Peter Scharf, "Ramopakhyana - the Story of Rama in the Mahabharata" (The Sanskrit Library, 2023)

April 11, 2024

Ramopakhyana: The Story of Rama in the Mahabharata

Peter Scharf
Hosted by Raj Balkaran

Consisting of about 25,000 verses in Valmiki's Rāmāyaṇa, the story of Rāma was summarized in 704 verses in eighteen chapters in the Rāmopākhyāna, whic…