In this talk, Nancy Martin will trace the making of the sixteenth-century royal rajput devotee Mirabai into a saint and cultural heroine through the varied portrayals of her across the centuries found in hagiography, rajput historiography, nationalist rhetoric, and oral epic song traditions. She will also examine the early twentieth-century mobilization of Mirabai as a cultural heroine by Gandhi, Tagore, and others, culminating in Subbulakshmi’s film portrayal of the poet-saint on the cusp of Indian ...

Pakistan is today a Muslim country, and it has been so for nearly a thousand years. But before that, Buddhism thrived in the area known today as Pakistan, especially in the regions of Gandhara, Gilgit, and Baltistan. In this talk, José Cabezón will explore the Buddhist heritage of Pakistan through a virtual tour of some of its most important Buddhist sites, with examples of the exquisite art of Gandhara found in Pakistan’s major museums. José ...

A common refrain in political rhetoric is the charge that given instances of agonism are defective because they are in some crucial way reactive. However, “reactivity” is polysemous and opaque, despite any seeming transparency implied by the fluency by which it is so often attributed. This talk offers an analytic and ethnographic entrée into the problem of reactivity by considering diasporic investments in mass-mediated address. Sikh media activists scrutinize the reactivity seemingly cultivated by their ...

On November 14, as part of the inaugural celebration of the Bhagvan Vimalnath Endowed Chair in Jain Studies and South Asian Religions at UC Santa Barbara, we will welcome our new colleague, Anil Mundra, as the inaugural holder of the Endowed Chair. The celebration will feature a lecture by distinguished Visiting Professor Jayendra Soni at 4:00 pm and will be followed by a reception. Jayandra Soni retired in May 2012 from the Department of Indology ...