For those of us in the United States, Gandhi’s birthday is also an opportunity to reflect on how lessons from…
Gandhi’s birthday and the American religious left
India
Giving, time, and a wish
One of my central research questions concerns how wealth is given. What tools or techniques do the wealthy use to…
Constituting religion: From South Asia to Malaysia
At the start of his outstanding new book, Constituting Religion, Tamir Moustafa explains that initially his ambition extended beyond Malaysia…
Creating new Sufi publics at an old Sufi shrine
[M]odern Sufis have recognized the importance of music and the arts as a recruitment tool for forming a new Sufi…
Divine!
I am interested in mothers that are fathers, fathers that are mothers, and other forms of queer gestation and parenting.
The elegy for good days: Encounters with Urdu poetry in Delhi
How do we understand the Islamicness of Urdu poetry and also the spread of Urdu poetry far beyond the bounds…
Sonic privilege: The holism of religious publics
Is there a particular link between the sonic and the holistic nature of public religious performances that exceeds what can…
Thealogy or pathology? Reflections from South India
Does attributing motherhood to divinity do anything to undermine patriarchy? The answer, at least from where I sit, is no.
Le mal des fleurs
Surely one reason for the ongoing but mistakenly benign and otherworldly cliché of India as a land of “spirituality” is…
The Cow in the Elevator: An introduction
In January 2009 I found myself helping three priests lure a reluctant cow into an elevator in the city of…