New Books in Indian Religions

Mar 11 2025 535 ep. 52 mins 2.7k
New Books in Indian Religions Podcast artwork

Interviews with Scholars of Indian Religions with their New Books

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  Religion & Spirituality
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Daemons, Tantra, and Cultural Exchange with David Gordon White

Mar 11 2025 62 mins  
In this episode, Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with David Gordon White, a distinguished indologist and scholar of Tantra. Our conversation focuses on David’s most recent project tracing the transregional histories of spirits, gods, demons, and their associated rituals across Eurasia. Along the way, we dive into an intellectual conversation about dog-headed men, angry goddesses, a

Anna Lise Seastrand, "Body, History, Myth: Early Modern Murals in South India" (Princeton UP, 2024)

Mar 06 2025 44 mins  
An astonishing variety of murals greet visitors to the temples and palaces of southern India. Beautiful in execution and extensive in scope, murals painted on walls and ceilings adorn the most important spaces of early modern religious and political performance. Scene by scene, histories of holy sites, portraits that incorporate historical figures into mythic landscapes, and Tamil

Violent Majorities 2.3: Long-Distance Ethnonationalism Roundup (LA, AS)

Mar 06 2025 46 mins  
John joins Lori Allen and Ajantha Subramanian for the roundup episode of the second series of Violent Majorities, focusing on long-distance ethnonationalism. Looking back at their conversations with Peter Beinart on Zionism and Subir Sinha on Hindutva, Lori begins by asking whether Peter underestimates the material entanglements keeping Jewish American support for Israel in place.

Manu Pillai, "Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity" (Allen Lane, 2025)

Mar 06 2025 62 mins  
What is Hinduism? For centuries, that question was particularly thorny, both for local Indians and for colonial outsiders. People inside and outside the country tried to define what Hinduism was. Missionaries grappled with Hindu practices, finding both similarities and dangerous differences with their own Christian faith. The East India Company adopted several Hindu rituals to keep

Material Religion, Assemblage, and the Agency of Things in South Asia

Feb 27 2025 49 mins  
This special issue of Nidan: International Journal for Indian Studies is the product of a collective experiment with materials that are assembled, imagined, and agentive in the context of South Asian religions. The articles are available here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.suppo

Claire C. Robison, "Bringing Krishna Back to India" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Feb 20 2025 49 mins  
The Hare Krishnas have long been associated with American hippie culture and New Age religious movements. But they have developed deeply rooted communities in India and throughout the world over the past 50 years. Known officially as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), this once-marginal religious community now wields vast economic assets, political influe

Violent Majorities 2.2: Subir Sinha on Hindutva as Long-Distance Ethnonationalism

Feb 20 2025 56 mins  
Lori Allen and Ajantha Subramanian continue their second series on Violent Majorities. Their previous episode featured Peter Beinart on Zionism as long-distance ethnonationalism; here they speak with Subir Sinha, who teaches at SOAS University of London, comments on Indian and European media, and is a member of a commission of inquiry exploring the 2022 unrest between Hindus and Mu

Sunila S. Kale and Christian Lee Novetzke, "The Yoga of Power: Political Thought and Practice in India" (Columbia UP, 2025)

Feb 13 2025 54 mins  
In Indian languages from Sanskrit to Marathi, yoga has an enormous range of meanings, though most often it refers to philosophy or methods to control the mind and body. The Yoga of Power: Political Thought and Practice in India (Columbia UP, 2025) argues for a wider understanding, demonstrating that yoga has long expressed political thought and practice. The political idea of yoga

Lavanya Vemsani, "Handbook of Indian History" (Springer, 2024)

Feb 06 2025 38 mins  
Handbook of Indian History (Springer, 2024) comprehensively examines the extensive history of India by focusing on the unifying themes of history. The profound analysis of special events and impactful personalities of Indian history form the core of the book. Handbook of Indian History includes articles on cultural, social, and political history of India, topics of religion, philos

Anand Venkatkrishnan, "Love in the Time of Scholarship: The Bhagavata Purana in Indian Intellectual History" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Jan 30 2025 38 mins  
Where is the "life" in scholarly life? Is it possible to find in academic writing, so often abstracted from the everyday? How might religion bridge that gap? In Love in the Time of Scholarship: The Bhagavata Purana in Indian Intellectual History (Oxford UP, 2024), author Anand Venkatkrishnan explores these questions within the intellectual history of a popular Hindu scripture, the