Symposium: Religious entanglements in modern South Asia

CIP is pleased to partner with the Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CRASSH) for this international symposium on religious entanglements in modern South Asia.

The event is organised by Dr Ankur Barua, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge and Dr Soumen Mukherjee, Charles Wallace India Trust Visiting Fellow, University of Cambridge (Michaelmas Term 2024) & Presidency University, Kolkata.

This symposium is supported by the Cambridge Interfaith Research Forum (Small Grant scheme) and co-sponsored by the Teape Trust.

Schedule

0930  Opening remarks

0945  Keynote address by Professor Faisal Devji, University of Oxford

1030  Panel 1 | Texts, contexts, and identities

• Migrating songs: Ismaili Gināns in the Indian diaspora – Mr Imran Visram, University of Oxford
• ‘Singing the Lord’s song in a strange land’: A.J. Appasamy’s indigenization of the Gospel of John through Hindu Bhakti – Dr Ankur Barua, University of Cambridge

Chair: Dr Hina Khalid, Cambridge & Discussant: Dr Karen O’Brien-Kop, London

1145  Panel 2 | Reformists, revivalists, and beyond

• Easy entanglements and uneasy reconciliations?: A reading of Akshay Kumar Dutta’s Bharatbarshiya Upasak Sampraday
  Professor Sumit Chakrabarti, Presidency University, Kolkata (Online)
• The Ramakrishna-Vivekananda tradition c. 1880-1920: reform or revival?
  Dr Arpita Mitra, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi (Online)

Chair: Professor Jeffery D. Long, Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania
Discussant: Dr Soumen Mukherjee, Cambridge/Kolkata

1345  Panel 3 | Religion, society, and literary traditions

• An omnibus of Maithili chapbooks: how unorthodox printing engaged with religious communities in colonial South Asia
  Dr Pranav Prakash, University of Oxford
• The human being as the mirror of the infinite: exploring the theological anthropologies of Muhammad Iqbal and Rabindranath Tagore
  Dr Hina Khalid, University of Cambridge

Chair: Professor Jeffery D. Long, Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania
Discussant: Dr Ankur Barua, Cambridge

1500  Panel 4 | South Asian religions, interreligious exchanges, and global pathways

• Phiroz Mehta: Theosophy, transreligiosity and writing in the margins
  Dr Karen O’Brien-Kop, King’s College, London
• Influencers of the twentieth century: how intellectual Vedanta devotees transformed American culture and interfaith dialogue
  Professor Jeffery D. Long, Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania

Chair: Dr Soumen Mukherjee, Cambridge/Kolkata
Discussant: Dr Hina Khalid, Cambridge

Practicalities

This event is hybrid, with the possibility of online attendance via Zoom.

All times are GMT. Panels will run for 60 minutes, with breaktimes between.

Please use the registration link below to receive more detailed information.