Neelima Shukla-Bhatt
Professor of Religious Studies
Interests include 艺术s in religious/cultural history of South Asia; the divine and the human feminine in Hindu traditions; Gandhian thought and practices; the self and the other in South Asian philosophical traditions and history.
What stirs my research and teaching interests is how understandings of the cosmos and human place within it in various p艺术 of the world get expressed through cultural forms such as poetry, 叙述, 音乐, 跳舞, 视觉艺术, and digital media that have far reaching implications in history and contemporary affairs. As an undergraduate student in 印度 I studied English, while being surrounded by popular cultural forms which expressed worldviews in 音乐, 跳舞, 和诗歌. 在美国, I pursued graduate study in history of religion at Harvard University with a focus on cultural expressions of devotion in South Asia in an interdisciplinary manner, combining literary analysis with ethnographic 工作 and performance studies. My research and teaching since have been interdisciplinary.
My first book, co-authored with historian Surendra Bhana, A Fire That Blazed in the Ocean: Gandhi and Poems of 非暴力不合作 in South Africa 1909-1911 studies poems published by Gandhi in his weekly 印度的意见 during the first non-violent resistance movement he led in South Africa. The book examines poems written by p艺术icipants in the movement to be recited or performed in public, as historically significant texts embedded in cultural currents of 印度, yet expressing resistance to the most powerful empire of the world at the time. It highlights the contribution of the little-known p艺术icipants in shaping the concept of 非暴力不合作 (truth force), the foundational principle of Gandhi’s later internationally celebrated movements.
我的论文 Narainha Mehta of Gujarat: A Legacy of Bhakti in Songs and Stories 学习生活, 工作, and memory of a fifteenth century devotional poet from Gujarat in Western 印度. It examines how the popular devotional songs attributed to the poet and cultural memory of his life in hagiographic 叙述 have offered a powerful resource for moral inspiration to the people of the region for centuries. It discusses how Gandhi tapped into this resource to influence the moral subjectivity of his followers in movements for independence and social reconstruction in the early twentieth century. Parallels are also drawn to the use of popular hymns in the civil rights movement in the US.
Some of my recent 工作 is focused on the divine feminine and religious lives of women in Hindu communities in 印度 and in the diaspora. 在一篇文章中, I examine the rise of village goddesses in the pan-印度n Hindu pantheon as their devotees rise in the political and social arena. 在其他, I examine gendered popular expressions of devotion that offer agency to women in patriarchal settings and have been effectively used by feminist movements in 印度. I am currently 工作ing on two monographs focusing on different aspects of the Hindu tradition.
在韦尔斯利, I aim to lead students in my courses in South Asian religions, 艺术, literature and cinema, to view the region’s cultural products as p艺术s of a continually evolving history of its people. 在韦尔斯利, in 2016 I was invited to teach an online course on Hinduism in HarvardX series “World Religions through its Scriptures,” a p艺术 of their Religious Literacy initiative to aiming to encourage interreligious communications among world’s citizens. The course has since run three times and has drawn thousands in conversations worldwide. I have also taught a course on “South Asian Models of Religious Pluralism” at Ashoka University Delhi, 印度, and lectured on the topic at educational institutions in 印度 and in media. As a teacher and scholar, I hope to contribute to global awareness of diversity of religious traditions and thinking about how this diversity can be transformed into pluralism.
When not teaching or writing, I do my riyaz (practice) in 印度n classical 音乐.
教育
- B.A., Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (印度)
- M.A., Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (印度)
- M.Div., Harvard University
- Ph.D., Harvard University