Dr. Brian K Pennington is a scholar of modern Hinduism. He currently serves as a Professor of Religious Studies and Director for the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture and Society (CSRCS) at Elon University in Elon, N.C.
Prior to his work at Elon, Pennington taught religion and chaired the Division of Humanities at Maryville College in Tennessee. He has served in leadership roles in a number of professional organizations, including two terms on the board of directors of the American Academy of Religion, a two-year term on that organization's executive committee, and president of the American Academy of Religion, Southeastern Region. Phone: (336) 278-5988 Address: 2960 Campus Box Elon, NC 27244
Teaching Religion and Violence (edited by Brian K. Pennington), 2012
Many people now see religious violence as one of the defining characteristics of the modern world... more Many people now see religious violence as one of the defining characteristics of the modern world. Instructors are often asked about it in their courses that deal with religion. Classroom discussion of violence committed in the name of religion can either open the door to a more subtle appreciation of complex and divisive social realities or allow students to display the kind of ignorance, prejudice, and recalcitrance that can derail critical analysis. The etiology of religious violence requires careful distinctions that instructors must work hard to communicate even in the best of classroom circumstances. This book represents the accumulated professional insights and experiences of expert college and university instructors who teach and write about the intersections of religion and violence.
This volume offers 13 case studies drawn from both historic and contemporary religions of South A... more This volume offers 13 case studies drawn from both historic and contemporary religions of South Asia to analyze and theorize deliberate changes to ritual structure or performance. While rituals derive much of their authority from their association with tradition and must adhere to varying degrees to certain prescriptions, they are also routinely the subjects of intentional, conscious, and even public invention or alteration. We refer to these interventions in ritual as “innovation” to signal that we see these changes not as devious or cynical but rather as part of ritual’s inherent creative potential and its adaptability to new contexts and circumstances. Innovation is simply one of set of options that ritual presents to participants and performers for pursuing the objectives of specific interested parties. Ritual innovation can legitimate or express social status, invest new forms of political or religious authority with legitimacy, or authenticate non-traditional modes of religious selfhood.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Brian K. Pennington (Elon University) and Amy L. Allocco (Elon University), “Introduction.”
PART I: RITUAL INNOVATION AND POLITICAL POWER
Chapter 2: Nawaraj Chaulagain (Illinois Wesleyan University), “Coronation of the Hindu King: Tradition and Innovation in Nepalese History.”
Chapter 3: Anne T. Mocko (Concordia College), “Ritual Replacement and the Unmaking of Monarchy: Notes on Nepal’s Bhoṭo Jātrā, 2006-2008.”
Chapter 4: Michael Baltutis (University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh), “Innovating the Ancient, Instantiating the Urban: the South Asian Indra Festival.”
Chapter 5: Luke Whitmore (University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point), “Changes in Ritual Practice at the Himalayan Hindu Shrine of Kedārnāth.”
Chapter 6: Reid B. Locklin (University of Toronto), “Ritual Renunciation and/or Ritual Innovation? Re-describing Advaita Tradition.”
PART II: RITUAL AND THE ECONOMIES OF CASTE AND CLASS
Chapter 7: Matthew R. Sayers (Lebanon Valley College), “Ancestral Rites Re-worked: The Transition from Solemn to Domestic Modes of Feeding the Dead.”
Chapter 8: Amy L. Allocco (Elon University), “Flower Showers for the Goddess: Borrowing, Modification, and Ritual Innovation in Tamil Nadu.”
Chapter 9: Shital Sharma (McGill University), “Consuming Kṛṣṇa: Women, Class, and Ritual Economies in Puṣṭimārg Vaiṣṇavism.”
PART III: RITUAL AND THE NEGOTIATION OF GENDER
Chapter 10: Brian K. Pennington (Elon University), “Village Widow/Town Priestess:
Innovating Ritual Power in a Pilgrimage Economy.”
Chapter 11: M. Whitney Kelting (Northeastern University), “Leveraging Agency: Young Jain Women’s Ritual Innovations through the Updhān Fast.”
Chapter 12: Liz Wilson (Miami University of Ohio), “Ritual Innovation and Masculine Identity Formation in the Contemporary Cult of Lord Ayyappaṉ.”
PART IV: RITUAL INNOVATION IN CONTEMPORARY TRANSNATIONAL CONTEXTS
Chapter 13: Charles S. Preston (University of Chicago), “Dancing the Vedas, Deritualizing Theory: A Study of ‘The Universal Truth’”
Chapter 14: Janet Gunn (Thorneloe College at Laurentian University), “Ganesha and the Chocolate Almonds: Ritual Innovation and Efficacy in Diaspora.”
Chapter 15: Sudharshan Durayappah (University of Toronto) and Corinne Dempsey (Nazareth College), “Recasting Sexuality, Gender, and Family through Contemporary Canadian Ritual Innovation.”
ABSTRACT: In this roundtable discussion, five scholars of modern India with diverse methodological training examine aspects of Rupa Viswanath's 2014 book, The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India, and assess its arguments and contributions. This book has made strong challenges to the scholarly consensus on the nature of caste in India, arguing that, in the Madras presidency under the British, caste functioned as a form of labour control of the lowest orders and, in this roundtable, she calls colonial Madras a 'slave society'. The scholars included here examine that contention and the major subsidiary arguments on which it is based. Uday Chandra identifies The Pariah Problem with a new social history of caste and Dalitness. Brian K. Pennington links the 'religionization' of caste that Viswanath identifies to the contemporary Hindu right's concerns for religious sentiment and authenticity. Lucinda Ramberg takes up Viswanath's account of the constitution of a public that excluded the Dalit to inquire further about the gendered nature of that public and the private realm it simultaneously generated. Zoe Sherinian calls attention to Viswanath's characterization of missionary opposition to social equality for Dalits and examines missionary and Dalit discourses that stand apart from those that Viswanath studied. Joel Lee extends some of Viswanath's claims about the Madras presidency by showing strong parallels to social practices in colonial North India. Finally, Viswanath's own response addresses the assessments of her colleagues.
The international outcry by scholars and journalists that followed Penguin Books,’ withdrawal of ... more The international outcry by scholars and journalists that followed Penguin Books,’ withdrawal of Wendy Doniger’s 2009, The Hindus: An Alternative History, typically attributed the conflict to one of two causes. Reactions in India tended to blame the publisher for capitulating to pressure from the Hindu right; reactions in the United States tended to blame a climate of intolerance for free speech in India as a whole. This article argues that both responses overlooked the true source of the conflict, section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes “outraging the religious feelings of any class of Indian citizens.” This law has generated a politics of religious sentiment that legally empowers those offended by academic speech to suppress it. The statute, moreover, works to conceal its operations through the manufacture of hurt feelings and consequent demands for censorship that appear to emerge from offended subjects rather than from the law.
The Bengali newspaper Samācār Candrikā from 1830 to 1831 offers a glimpse at the emergence of the... more The Bengali newspaper Samācār Candrikā from 1830 to 1831 offers a glimpse at the emergence of the Modern, popular Hinduism now evident in Hindu nationalism in India. Preserving orthodox Hindu responses to the reforms advocated by the rational Hindu monotheism of the Brahmo Samaj and evangelical Christian missionaries, the newspaper stressed the unifying Character of Hindu ritual, the spiritual significance of caste, and the traditional gender relations symbolized by widow immolation even after its 1829 abolition. The paper's greatest contribution to historians' understanding of the construction of Hinduism as a coherent entity is its clear testimony to the essential role played by Hindus themselves in that process, often associated with Orientalists and missionaries.
Many people now see religious violence as one of the defining characteristics of the modern world... more Many people now see religious violence as one of the defining characteristics of the modern world. Instructors are often asked about it in their courses that deal with religion. Classroom discussion of violence committed in the name of religion can either open the door to a more subtle appreciation of complex and divisive social realities or allow students to display the kind of ignorance, prejudice, and recalcitrance that can derail critical analysis. The etiology of religious violence requires careful distinctions that instructors must work hard to communicate even in the best of classroom circumstances. This book represents the accumulated professional insights and experiences of expert college and university instructors who teach and write about the intersections of religion and violence.
Interreligious Studies: Dispatches from an Emerging Field, 2020
Interreligious Studies edited by Hans Gustafson (Baylor UP) brings together thirty-six scholars f... more Interreligious Studies edited by Hans Gustafson (Baylor UP) brings together thirty-six scholars from to produce "dispatches" on the current state of this burgeoning field. This volume probes the context, parameters, and contours of interreligious studies (IRS), including its relation to other disciplines, its promise as a field of research in secular and nonsecular contexts, its particular terminology and methodology, its civic agenda, and the various scholarly profiles of those who pursue it. This chapter, "(Neo-)Liberal Challenges," argues for the development of interreligious studies as a space for the interrogation and critique of the liberal and neoliberal imaginaire that informs the academy as well as the interfaith movement. Volume available here: https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481312547/interreligious-studies/
Teaching Religion and Violence (edited by Brian K. Pennington), 2012
Many people now see religious violence as one of the defining characteristics of the modern world... more Many people now see religious violence as one of the defining characteristics of the modern world. Instructors are often asked about it in their courses that deal with religion. Classroom discussion of violence committed in the name of religion can either open the door to a more subtle appreciation of complex and divisive social realities or allow students to display the kind of ignorance, prejudice, and recalcitrance that can derail critical analysis. The etiology of religious violence requires careful distinctions that instructors must work hard to communicate even in the best of classroom circumstances. This book represents the accumulated professional insights and experiences of expert college and university instructors who teach and write about the intersections of religion and violence.
This volume offers 13 case studies drawn from both historic and contemporary religions of South A... more This volume offers 13 case studies drawn from both historic and contemporary religions of South Asia to analyze and theorize deliberate changes to ritual structure or performance. While rituals derive much of their authority from their association with tradition and must adhere to varying degrees to certain prescriptions, they are also routinely the subjects of intentional, conscious, and even public invention or alteration. We refer to these interventions in ritual as “innovation” to signal that we see these changes not as devious or cynical but rather as part of ritual’s inherent creative potential and its adaptability to new contexts and circumstances. Innovation is simply one of set of options that ritual presents to participants and performers for pursuing the objectives of specific interested parties. Ritual innovation can legitimate or express social status, invest new forms of political or religious authority with legitimacy, or authenticate non-traditional modes of religious selfhood.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Brian K. Pennington (Elon University) and Amy L. Allocco (Elon University), “Introduction.”
PART I: RITUAL INNOVATION AND POLITICAL POWER
Chapter 2: Nawaraj Chaulagain (Illinois Wesleyan University), “Coronation of the Hindu King: Tradition and Innovation in Nepalese History.”
Chapter 3: Anne T. Mocko (Concordia College), “Ritual Replacement and the Unmaking of Monarchy: Notes on Nepal’s Bhoṭo Jātrā, 2006-2008.”
Chapter 4: Michael Baltutis (University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh), “Innovating the Ancient, Instantiating the Urban: the South Asian Indra Festival.”
Chapter 5: Luke Whitmore (University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point), “Changes in Ritual Practice at the Himalayan Hindu Shrine of Kedārnāth.”
Chapter 6: Reid B. Locklin (University of Toronto), “Ritual Renunciation and/or Ritual Innovation? Re-describing Advaita Tradition.”
PART II: RITUAL AND THE ECONOMIES OF CASTE AND CLASS
Chapter 7: Matthew R. Sayers (Lebanon Valley College), “Ancestral Rites Re-worked: The Transition from Solemn to Domestic Modes of Feeding the Dead.”
Chapter 8: Amy L. Allocco (Elon University), “Flower Showers for the Goddess: Borrowing, Modification, and Ritual Innovation in Tamil Nadu.”
Chapter 9: Shital Sharma (McGill University), “Consuming Kṛṣṇa: Women, Class, and Ritual Economies in Puṣṭimārg Vaiṣṇavism.”
PART III: RITUAL AND THE NEGOTIATION OF GENDER
Chapter 10: Brian K. Pennington (Elon University), “Village Widow/Town Priestess:
Innovating Ritual Power in a Pilgrimage Economy.”
Chapter 11: M. Whitney Kelting (Northeastern University), “Leveraging Agency: Young Jain Women’s Ritual Innovations through the Updhān Fast.”
Chapter 12: Liz Wilson (Miami University of Ohio), “Ritual Innovation and Masculine Identity Formation in the Contemporary Cult of Lord Ayyappaṉ.”
PART IV: RITUAL INNOVATION IN CONTEMPORARY TRANSNATIONAL CONTEXTS
Chapter 13: Charles S. Preston (University of Chicago), “Dancing the Vedas, Deritualizing Theory: A Study of ‘The Universal Truth’”
Chapter 14: Janet Gunn (Thorneloe College at Laurentian University), “Ganesha and the Chocolate Almonds: Ritual Innovation and Efficacy in Diaspora.”
Chapter 15: Sudharshan Durayappah (University of Toronto) and Corinne Dempsey (Nazareth College), “Recasting Sexuality, Gender, and Family through Contemporary Canadian Ritual Innovation.”
ABSTRACT: In this roundtable discussion, five scholars of modern India with diverse methodological training examine aspects of Rupa Viswanath's 2014 book, The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India, and assess its arguments and contributions. This book has made strong challenges to the scholarly consensus on the nature of caste in India, arguing that, in the Madras presidency under the British, caste functioned as a form of labour control of the lowest orders and, in this roundtable, she calls colonial Madras a 'slave society'. The scholars included here examine that contention and the major subsidiary arguments on which it is based. Uday Chandra identifies The Pariah Problem with a new social history of caste and Dalitness. Brian K. Pennington links the 'religionization' of caste that Viswanath identifies to the contemporary Hindu right's concerns for religious sentiment and authenticity. Lucinda Ramberg takes up Viswanath's account of the constitution of a public that excluded the Dalit to inquire further about the gendered nature of that public and the private realm it simultaneously generated. Zoe Sherinian calls attention to Viswanath's characterization of missionary opposition to social equality for Dalits and examines missionary and Dalit discourses that stand apart from those that Viswanath studied. Joel Lee extends some of Viswanath's claims about the Madras presidency by showing strong parallels to social practices in colonial North India. Finally, Viswanath's own response addresses the assessments of her colleagues.
The international outcry by scholars and journalists that followed Penguin Books,’ withdrawal of ... more The international outcry by scholars and journalists that followed Penguin Books,’ withdrawal of Wendy Doniger’s 2009, The Hindus: An Alternative History, typically attributed the conflict to one of two causes. Reactions in India tended to blame the publisher for capitulating to pressure from the Hindu right; reactions in the United States tended to blame a climate of intolerance for free speech in India as a whole. This article argues that both responses overlooked the true source of the conflict, section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes “outraging the religious feelings of any class of Indian citizens.” This law has generated a politics of religious sentiment that legally empowers those offended by academic speech to suppress it. The statute, moreover, works to conceal its operations through the manufacture of hurt feelings and consequent demands for censorship that appear to emerge from offended subjects rather than from the law.
The Bengali newspaper Samācār Candrikā from 1830 to 1831 offers a glimpse at the emergence of the... more The Bengali newspaper Samācār Candrikā from 1830 to 1831 offers a glimpse at the emergence of the Modern, popular Hinduism now evident in Hindu nationalism in India. Preserving orthodox Hindu responses to the reforms advocated by the rational Hindu monotheism of the Brahmo Samaj and evangelical Christian missionaries, the newspaper stressed the unifying Character of Hindu ritual, the spiritual significance of caste, and the traditional gender relations symbolized by widow immolation even after its 1829 abolition. The paper's greatest contribution to historians' understanding of the construction of Hinduism as a coherent entity is its clear testimony to the essential role played by Hindus themselves in that process, often associated with Orientalists and missionaries.
Many people now see religious violence as one of the defining characteristics of the modern world... more Many people now see religious violence as one of the defining characteristics of the modern world. Instructors are often asked about it in their courses that deal with religion. Classroom discussion of violence committed in the name of religion can either open the door to a more subtle appreciation of complex and divisive social realities or allow students to display the kind of ignorance, prejudice, and recalcitrance that can derail critical analysis. The etiology of religious violence requires careful distinctions that instructors must work hard to communicate even in the best of classroom circumstances. This book represents the accumulated professional insights and experiences of expert college and university instructors who teach and write about the intersections of religion and violence.
Interreligious Studies: Dispatches from an Emerging Field, 2020
Interreligious Studies edited by Hans Gustafson (Baylor UP) brings together thirty-six scholars f... more Interreligious Studies edited by Hans Gustafson (Baylor UP) brings together thirty-six scholars from to produce "dispatches" on the current state of this burgeoning field. This volume probes the context, parameters, and contours of interreligious studies (IRS), including its relation to other disciplines, its promise as a field of research in secular and nonsecular contexts, its particular terminology and methodology, its civic agenda, and the various scholarly profiles of those who pursue it. This chapter, "(Neo-)Liberal Challenges," argues for the development of interreligious studies as a space for the interrogation and critique of the liberal and neoliberal imaginaire that informs the academy as well as the interfaith movement. Volume available here: https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481312547/interreligious-studies/
Hinduism in the Modern World (edited by Brian A. Hatcher)
Because of its particular history and its shared, related languages, North India presents a disti... more Because of its particular history and its shared, related languages, North India presents a distinctive version of Hinduism whose contours continue to evolve under conditions of rapid development and globalization. An examination of three features of the religious culture of contemporary North India—practices that express an attachment to its landscape, modes of Hindu activism on behalf of the environment or the nation, and religious entrepreneurialism that is now generating exciting if sometimes problematic developments in Hindu religious life—show us how the transformations we see Hinduism undergoing in North India represent a distinctly modern, or even post-modern, environment. Shaped by the commodification of religion and the politicization of religious identity, these emerging realities reveal not simply how Hinduism is distinctive in North India, but how new forms are being actively produced by religious authorities and devotees alike.
In his recent book, Arvind-Pal S. Mandair ranges widely through post-colonial theory, Sikh histor... more In his recent book, Arvind-Pal S. Mandair ranges widely through post-colonial theory, Sikh history, and continental philosophy to show that aspects of the Sikh tradition were recast in the colonial period in terms of the concept of religion (conceived as a cultural universal) and in terms of the emerging discourse on religion being manufactured by the nascent field of the history of religion. This is a masterful work, perhaps less for the originality of its thesis than for Mandair’s command over his vast body of sources and the scholarly traditions they represent and for his ability to marshal them in support of his case. There was surely no longer any doubt that the colonial project, in an early phase of the hegemonic globalization of western concepts and values, decisively and substantially altered the South Asian religious landscape, but Mandair has now authored an authoritative account of that dramatic shift and its impact on Sikh traditions.
An analysis and discussion of National Geographic Channel's television show entitled, "The Story ... more An analysis and discussion of National Geographic Channel's television show entitled, "The Story of God."
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Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Brian K. Pennington (Elon University) and Amy L. Allocco (Elon University), “Introduction.”
PART I: RITUAL INNOVATION AND POLITICAL POWER
Chapter 2: Nawaraj Chaulagain (Illinois Wesleyan University), “Coronation of the Hindu King: Tradition and Innovation in Nepalese History.”
Chapter 3: Anne T. Mocko (Concordia College), “Ritual Replacement and the Unmaking of Monarchy: Notes on Nepal’s Bhoṭo Jātrā, 2006-2008.”
Chapter 4: Michael Baltutis (University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh), “Innovating the Ancient, Instantiating the Urban: the South Asian Indra Festival.”
Chapter 5: Luke Whitmore (University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point), “Changes in Ritual Practice at the Himalayan Hindu Shrine of Kedārnāth.”
Chapter 6: Reid B. Locklin (University of Toronto), “Ritual Renunciation and/or Ritual Innovation? Re-describing Advaita Tradition.”
PART II: RITUAL AND THE ECONOMIES OF CASTE AND CLASS
Chapter 7: Matthew R. Sayers (Lebanon Valley College), “Ancestral Rites Re-worked: The Transition from Solemn to Domestic Modes of Feeding the Dead.”
Chapter 8: Amy L. Allocco (Elon University), “Flower Showers for the Goddess: Borrowing, Modification, and Ritual Innovation in Tamil Nadu.”
Chapter 9: Shital Sharma (McGill University), “Consuming Kṛṣṇa: Women, Class, and Ritual Economies in Puṣṭimārg Vaiṣṇavism.”
PART III: RITUAL AND THE NEGOTIATION OF GENDER
Chapter 10: Brian K. Pennington (Elon University), “Village Widow/Town Priestess:
Innovating Ritual Power in a Pilgrimage Economy.”
Chapter 11: M. Whitney Kelting (Northeastern University), “Leveraging Agency: Young Jain Women’s Ritual Innovations through the Updhān Fast.”
Chapter 12: Liz Wilson (Miami University of Ohio), “Ritual Innovation and Masculine Identity Formation in the Contemporary Cult of Lord Ayyappaṉ.”
PART IV: RITUAL INNOVATION IN CONTEMPORARY TRANSNATIONAL CONTEXTS
Chapter 13: Charles S. Preston (University of Chicago), “Dancing the Vedas, Deritualizing Theory: A Study of ‘The Universal Truth’”
Chapter 14: Janet Gunn (Thorneloe College at Laurentian University), “Ganesha and the Chocolate Almonds: Ritual Innovation and Efficacy in Diaspora.”
Chapter 15: Sudharshan Durayappah (University of Toronto) and Corinne Dempsey (Nazareth College), “Recasting Sexuality, Gender, and Family through Contemporary Canadian Ritual Innovation.”
ABSTRACT: In this roundtable discussion, five scholars of modern India with diverse methodological training examine aspects of Rupa Viswanath's 2014 book, The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India, and assess its arguments and contributions. This book has made strong challenges to the scholarly consensus on the nature of caste in India, arguing that, in the Madras presidency under the British, caste functioned as a form of labour control of the lowest orders and, in this roundtable, she calls colonial Madras a 'slave society'. The scholars included here examine that contention and the major subsidiary arguments on which it is based. Uday Chandra identifies The Pariah Problem with a new social history of caste and Dalitness. Brian K. Pennington links the 'religionization' of caste that Viswanath identifies to the contemporary Hindu right's concerns for religious sentiment and authenticity. Lucinda Ramberg takes up Viswanath's account of the constitution of a public that excluded the Dalit to inquire further about the gendered nature of that public and the private realm it simultaneously generated. Zoe Sherinian calls attention to Viswanath's characterization of missionary opposition to social equality for Dalits and examines missionary and Dalit discourses that stand apart from those that Viswanath studied. Joel Lee extends some of Viswanath's claims about the Madras presidency by showing strong parallels to social practices in colonial North India. Finally, Viswanath's own response addresses the assessments of her colleagues.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Brian K. Pennington (Elon University) and Amy L. Allocco (Elon University), “Introduction.”
PART I: RITUAL INNOVATION AND POLITICAL POWER
Chapter 2: Nawaraj Chaulagain (Illinois Wesleyan University), “Coronation of the Hindu King: Tradition and Innovation in Nepalese History.”
Chapter 3: Anne T. Mocko (Concordia College), “Ritual Replacement and the Unmaking of Monarchy: Notes on Nepal’s Bhoṭo Jātrā, 2006-2008.”
Chapter 4: Michael Baltutis (University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh), “Innovating the Ancient, Instantiating the Urban: the South Asian Indra Festival.”
Chapter 5: Luke Whitmore (University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point), “Changes in Ritual Practice at the Himalayan Hindu Shrine of Kedārnāth.”
Chapter 6: Reid B. Locklin (University of Toronto), “Ritual Renunciation and/or Ritual Innovation? Re-describing Advaita Tradition.”
PART II: RITUAL AND THE ECONOMIES OF CASTE AND CLASS
Chapter 7: Matthew R. Sayers (Lebanon Valley College), “Ancestral Rites Re-worked: The Transition from Solemn to Domestic Modes of Feeding the Dead.”
Chapter 8: Amy L. Allocco (Elon University), “Flower Showers for the Goddess: Borrowing, Modification, and Ritual Innovation in Tamil Nadu.”
Chapter 9: Shital Sharma (McGill University), “Consuming Kṛṣṇa: Women, Class, and Ritual Economies in Puṣṭimārg Vaiṣṇavism.”
PART III: RITUAL AND THE NEGOTIATION OF GENDER
Chapter 10: Brian K. Pennington (Elon University), “Village Widow/Town Priestess:
Innovating Ritual Power in a Pilgrimage Economy.”
Chapter 11: M. Whitney Kelting (Northeastern University), “Leveraging Agency: Young Jain Women’s Ritual Innovations through the Updhān Fast.”
Chapter 12: Liz Wilson (Miami University of Ohio), “Ritual Innovation and Masculine Identity Formation in the Contemporary Cult of Lord Ayyappaṉ.”
PART IV: RITUAL INNOVATION IN CONTEMPORARY TRANSNATIONAL CONTEXTS
Chapter 13: Charles S. Preston (University of Chicago), “Dancing the Vedas, Deritualizing Theory: A Study of ‘The Universal Truth’”
Chapter 14: Janet Gunn (Thorneloe College at Laurentian University), “Ganesha and the Chocolate Almonds: Ritual Innovation and Efficacy in Diaspora.”
Chapter 15: Sudharshan Durayappah (University of Toronto) and Corinne Dempsey (Nazareth College), “Recasting Sexuality, Gender, and Family through Contemporary Canadian Ritual Innovation.”
ABSTRACT: In this roundtable discussion, five scholars of modern India with diverse methodological training examine aspects of Rupa Viswanath's 2014 book, The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India, and assess its arguments and contributions. This book has made strong challenges to the scholarly consensus on the nature of caste in India, arguing that, in the Madras presidency under the British, caste functioned as a form of labour control of the lowest orders and, in this roundtable, she calls colonial Madras a 'slave society'. The scholars included here examine that contention and the major subsidiary arguments on which it is based. Uday Chandra identifies The Pariah Problem with a new social history of caste and Dalitness. Brian K. Pennington links the 'religionization' of caste that Viswanath identifies to the contemporary Hindu right's concerns for religious sentiment and authenticity. Lucinda Ramberg takes up Viswanath's account of the constitution of a public that excluded the Dalit to inquire further about the gendered nature of that public and the private realm it simultaneously generated. Zoe Sherinian calls attention to Viswanath's characterization of missionary opposition to social equality for Dalits and examines missionary and Dalit discourses that stand apart from those that Viswanath studied. Joel Lee extends some of Viswanath's claims about the Madras presidency by showing strong parallels to social practices in colonial North India. Finally, Viswanath's own response addresses the assessments of her colleagues.
Link: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11841-011-0250-8