In December last year, I was back in the Western Indian city of Ahmedabad to meet members of the far-right…
The dead ends of Hindu supremacy
India
The surprising history of global blasphemy law
Who gets to say what about religion? When does free speech verge into something more insidious—insult, offense, even blasphemy? These…
US Indo-Caribbeans becoming visible through Hinduism
The unique history of Indo-Caribbean migration to the United States allows us to rethink who counts as Asian American and…
Understanding and undoing the far right: India and beyond
Rather than speak of the “right,” we in this concluding essay urge all to call these projects what they actually…
Sacred space and the (post)secular state
“There are some artifacts that are symbols of nations and states. One of these symbols is the Ayasofya,” said Turkish…
The failures and successes of translation
I will frame my response to the wonderfully diverse essays in this collection from within this framework of the failure…
Translating “courts” cautiously
Here I will draw out some translation lessons that my work on Indian dar ul qazas—often characterized as “Muslim courts”—has…
Making persons, cultures, and nations
In this exchange, Levi McLaughlin and Deonnie Moodie discuss person-making, culture-making, and nation-making projects in Japan and India.
Imagining community
I was so glad for a book that systematically discarded the American “separation of church and state” paradigm, which despite…
Practices of relation: Goh and Kaell
This dialogue between scholars Robbie Goh and Hillary Kaell covers the lure of the international, “agglomerative impulses,” and attachments to…