CIP is pleased to support a postgraduate symposium on religion in South Asia at the Faculty of Divinity this autumn.
The six organisers are all current or recent postgraduate students, with several based in the Faculty of Divinity, led by CIP affiliate Hina Khalid. Hina's collaborators are: Nirali Patel (MPhil in Philosophy of Religion, completed in 2021-2022), Hershini Soneji (Asian and Middle Eastern Studies), Namrata Narula (Centre for Gender Studies), Tilak Parekh (Divinity), and Imran Visram (University of Oxford).
The organisers set out with the intention of fostering interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations on the theme of religious expression in the subcontinent, exploring how devotional sensibilities and cultural heritages are diversely and dynamically intertwined. Across multiple South Asian landscapes, what interstices of antagonism and domains of hospitality exist within and between religious traditions?
The response to the initial call for papers reveals a generation of early career scholars interested in these questions. A total of 37 papers were accepted for inclusion. Hina explains:
'We had an overwhelming response to the call for papers, and we also received a large number of responses from students in international universities. We originally planned a one-day event, but the response sent us back to the drawing board. We now have two days to allow more speakers, with an online day to expand the regions and perspectives represented."
Many of the talks are shaped by inter-religious themes, across the socio-political milieus of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. Papers will explore the motifs of “antagonism” and “hospitality” from the manifold disciplinary vantage points of anthropology, theology, philosophy, and history.
The online day created space for a majority of international speakers from universities across India, the USA, and Australia. The second day of the symposium will take place at Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity, featuring a majority of UK-based scholars representing institutions across London, Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh, and York.
This symposium is generously sponsored by Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity, the Faculty of Theology & Religion at the University of Oxford, and the Woolf Institute, in addition to Cambridge Interfaith Programme.