Maria Heim, “The Forerunner of All Things: Budd...
Buddhaghosa, a fifth-century Pali Buddhist scholar or group of scholars, is the most influential commentator in Theravada Buddhist tradition, who has in many respects created the set of ideas we now associate with Theravada Buddhism today.
Entangled Urbanism: Slum, Gated Community and Shopping Mall in Delhi and Gurgaon (Oxford University Press, 2015) is the latest book by Sanjay Srivastava. A wonderfully readable piece of urban anthropology, the book explores the ways spaces and processe...
43 min
1203
Amanda Lucia, “Reflections of Amma: Devotees in...
Waiting several hours in line for a hug is well worth it for thousands of people, the devotees of the Guru, Amma, Mata Amritanandamayi. In Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace (University of California Press, 2014), Amanda Lucia,
Neha Vora‘s Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora (Duke University Press, 2013) is a wonderfully rich and engaging account of middle class Indians who live and work, supposedly temporarily, in Dubai.
52 min
1205
Bhavani Raman, “Document Raj: Writing and Scrib...
Bhavani Raman‘s new book Document Raj: Writing and Scribes in Early Colonial South India (University of Chicago Press, 2012) explores the world of colonial clerks in the Madras Presidency. Arguing that paper played an important role in colonial rule,
30 min
1206
Alf Gunvald Nilsen and Srila Roy, “New Subalter...
New Subaltern Politics: Reconceptualizing Hegemony and Resistance in Contemporary India (Oxford University Press, 2015), edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen and Srila Roy, is a wonderfully rich and theoretically coherent collection of texts that critically as...
35 min
1207
Gyanendra Pandey, “A History of Prejudice: Race...
A History of Prejudice: Race, Caste, and Difference in India and the United States (Cambridge University Press, 2013) is the latest book by Gyanendra Pandey. The book analyses prejudice and democracy through a comparison of African Americans and Indian...
55 min
1208
Mrinalini Chakravorty, “In Stereotype: South As...
In Stereotype: South Asia in the Global Literary Imaginary (Columbia University Press, 2014) is a masterful account of the importance of the stereotype in English language South Asian literature. Mrinalini Chakravorty explores such tropes as the crowd ...
41 min
1209
Venkat Dhulipala, “Creating a New Medina: State...
In the historiography on South Asian Islam, the creation of Pakistan is often approached as the manifestation of a vague loosely formulated idea that accidentally emerged as a nation-state in 1947. In his magisterial new book Creating a New Medina: Sta...
59 min
1210
Jeffery Witsoe, “Democracy against Development:...
Jeffery Witsoe‘s book Democracy against Development: Lower-Caste Politics and Political Modernity in Postcolonial India (University of Chicago Press, 2013) takes the reader to urban and rural Bihar and into the world of so called lower caste politics.
38 min
1211
Joyce B. Flueckiger, “When the World Becomes Fe...
Joyce B. Flueckiger‘s new bookWhen the World Becomes Female: Guises of a South Indian Goddess (Indiana University Press, 2013) is a rich and colorful analysis of the goddess Gangamma’s festival and her devotees.
57 min
1212
Steven E. Kemper, “Rescued from the Nation: Ana...
In his recent book, Rescued from the Nation: Anagarika Dharmapala and the Buddhist World (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Steven E. Kemper examines the Sinhala layman Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933) and argues that this figure has been misundersto...
Kabul Carnival: Gender Politics in Postwar Afghanistan (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) by Julie Billaud is a fascinating account of women and the state and ongoing ‘reconstruction’ projects in post-war Afghanistan.
46 min
1214
Tenzin Chogyel (trans. Kurtis R. Schaeffer), “T...
Kurtis R. Schaeffer‘s new translation of Tenzin Chogyel’s The Life of the Buddha(Penguin Books, 2015) is a boon for teachers, researchers, and eager readers alike. Composed in the middle of the eighteenth century,
61 min
1215
Nicholas B. Dirks, “Autobiography of an Archive...
Nicholas B. Dirks‘ Autobiography of an Archive: A Scholar’s Passage to India (Columbia University Press, 2015) is a wonderful collection of essays, loosely arranged along the line’s of the author’s scholarly life.
51 min
1216
Pedro Machado, “Ocean of Trade: South Asian Mer...
Pedro Machado‘s Ocean of Trade:South Asian Merchants, Africa and the Indian Ocean, c.1750-1850 (Cambridge University Press, 2014) is a richly detailed and engaging account of Gujarati merchants and their role in the trade of textiles,
43 min
1217
Ananya Vajpeyi, “Righteous Republic: The Politi...
Righteous Republic: The Political Foundations of Modern India (Harvard University Press, 2012) by Ananya Vajpeyi is a rethinking of the self in self-rule, as understood in the ideas generated and reworked by five leading figures of the Indian independe...
67 min
1218
Jamal Elias, “Aisha’s Cushion” (Harvard UP, 2012)
In his remarkable new book Aisha’s Cushion: Religious Art, Practice, and Perception in Islam (Harvard University Press, 2012), Jamal Elias, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, presents a magisterial study of Muslim attitud...
51 min
1219
Ritu G. Khanduri, “Caricaturing Culture in Indi...
Caricaturing Culture in India: Cartoons and History in the Modern World (Cambridge University Press, 2014) is a wonderful piece of visual anthropology by Ritu Gairola Khanduri, which uses the history of cartoons, from colonial to current times,
33 min
1220
Peter Gottschalk, “Religion, Science, and Empir...
When did religion begin in South Asia? Many would argue that it was not until the colonial encounter that South Asians began to understand themselves as religious. In Religion, Science, and Empire: Classifying Hinduism and Islam in British India (Oxfor...
61 min
1221
Dhara Anjaria, “Curzon’s India: Networks of Col...
I won’t speak for you, but I find it utterly remarkable that the British were able to “rule” India. Britain, of course, is a small island off a small continent some significant distance from most of its colonies. India, in contrast,
45 min
1222
Mukulika Banerjee, “Why India Votes?” (Routledg...
Why India Votes? (Routledge, 2014) is the latest book by Mukulika Banerjee and is a deep, engaging and continually surprising account of elections in India. Weaving together ethnographic research in field sites across the country,
49 min
1223
Cabeiri Robinson, “Body of Victim, Body of Warr...
The idea of jihad is among the most keenly discussed yet one of the least understood concepts in Islam. In her brilliant new book Body of Victim, Body of Warrior: Refugee Families and the Making of Kashmiri Jihadists (University of California Press,
91 min
1224
Neilesh Bose, “Recasting the Region: Language, ...
In his new book Recasting the Region: Language, Culture, and Islam in Colonial Bengal (Oxford University Press, 2014),Neilesh Bose analyses the trajectories of Muslim Bengali politics in the first half of the twentieth century.
46 min
1225
Meir Shahar and John Kieschnick, “India in the ...
In India in the Chinese Imagination: Myth, Religion, and Thought (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), eleven scholars (including editors John Kieschnick and Meir Shahar) examine the Chinese reception of Indian ideas and myth,