I work at the interface of the anthropology of religion, anthropology of embodiment, religious studies, and philosophy. I try to locate the body, senses, intuition, experience, imagination, and sacrality, in the interstices of everyday lives and strong philosophical traditions. In my first work, I did an intensive ethnography among different kinds of Bengal-Vaishnavas, focusing on diverse experiences of religious place and sensory apprehensions of divine affect. My first book, The Place of Devotion: Siting and Experiencing Divinity in Bengal-Vaishnavism’ (University of California Press) was published in 2015. I am also passionately interested in aesthetics and music, and their relations with sacred embodiment. I am currently working on a range of devotional instruments, communities involved in their making, playing, listening, meditating, and associated traditions of sonic metaphysics in Bengal. I also work more broadly in the area of South Asian devotion, including recent works on Orissan Jagannath worldviews, and tantric-devotional lifeworlds.
BA Sociology (Presidency College, Calcutta Univeristy, 2005)
MA Sociology (Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2007)
Research Training Programme (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, 2008)
PhD Social Anthropology (University of Cambridge, December, 2012)
I stood first in BA (Presidency College, Calcutta University, 2005), MA (J.N.U, 2007), and the Research Training Programme (CSSSC, 2008), and went on to do my PhD in Social Anthropology from Trinity College, Cambridge. My research was funded by the Gates Cambridge Trust and Overseas Research Studentship.
Fellowships:
UGC-CAS Visiting Fellow, The Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, March, 2016.
Hamied Visiting Fellow, Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, May, 2018. (Part of Presidency University-University of Cambridge Scholars' Exchange Program)
Shivdasani Visiting Fellow, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, University of Oxford, May, 2019.
Invited Lecture Series:
‘Tantric Traditions of Medieval Bengal’ (September 5, 2019) & ‘Vaisnava Sahajiya and Gaudiya Vaisnavism’ (September 6. 2019), Jnanapravaha Mumbai
Projects:
Member, Working Group of Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR)-Impress Project on ‘Intellectual Histories of Bhakti: Concepts, Institutions and Practices in Orissa 1500-2000’ (Principal Investigators: Dr. Siddharth Satpathy, University of Hyderabad and Dr. Urmishree Bedamatta, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack)
Co-Investigator, with Dr. Upal Chakrabarti (Presidency University) and Dr. Rochona Majumdar (Principal Investigator, University of Chicago), of University of Chicago-Presidency University collaborative project on ‘Hindu/Presidency College: A Global History’, 2020-2024. Provost’s Global Faculty Awards, UChicago. Grant Received: USD 28,000/year.
Co-Investigator, with Prof. Dipesh Chakraborty (University of Chicago), project on ‘The Conch and its Communities: Climate Change and the History of a Hindu Sacred Object in Bengal’, 2023-24, Provost’s Global Faculty Awards, UChicago. Grant Received: USD 30,000/year.
Peer reviewed journal articles, projects and book proposals for:
American Anthropologist, Asian Medicine, Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, International Journal of Hindu Studies, Presidency Historical Review, The Czech Science Foundation, Sage Publications, Journal of Hindu Studies.
I did research with the Vaishnavas of Bengal, and focussed on the varied ways in which different groups of Vaishnavas understand, construct and experience sacred place. The bigger question I tried to raise and answer was whether we can conceptualise space and place not only in terms of physical geographical locations, but also as interiorised in one's mind, body, and senses. Thus my research looked at complex relations and overlaps among spatial experiences, place-making, imagination, the body, and senses, especially how places are sensed and made sense of through sonic and musical sensations. My book, The Place of Devotion: Siting and Experiencing Divinity in Bengal-Vaishnavism (University of California Press, series: South Asia Across the Disciplines) was published in 2015.
I am also passionately interested in aesthetics and music, and their relations with sacred embodiment. I am currently working on a range of devotional instruments, communities involved in their making, playing, listening, meditating, and associated traditions of sonic metaphysics in Bengal. I also work more broadly in the area of South Asian devotion, including recent works on Orissan Jagannath worldviews, and tantric-devotional lifeworlds.
At the UG level, I teach Sociology of Religion, and at the PG level, I offer a full paper titled, Religion and Embodiment, and co-teach courses on Philosophy and the Social Sciences, and Subject and Method. My PhD students work on a range of issues primarily involving ethnographic perspectives on Bengal's (and eastern India's) religious-aesthetic lives, and philosophical lifeworlds.
Presidency University
Utsaleena Das, 'Chhou and Everyday Life in Purulia and Bankura, West Bengal' (Submitted, 2022.)
Salini Saha, 'Fertility, Worship and Monsoon among Agricultural Communities of Bardhaman, West Bengal' (Submitted, 2023)
Aishani Ganguly, 'Performing Ragurajpur: Studying Village Through its Performance Traditions' (2019-present)
External examination and supervision
Examiner of M.Phil dissertation, ‘Born to Procreate: Figuring the Maternal Bodies in Assisted Reproductive Technology’, by Pinaki Roy, submitted to the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, 2013.
Examiner of M.Phil dissertation ‘(Re)inscribing caste in urban spaces: Microhistory of a Dalit Buddhist neighbourhood in Bombay’, by Geeta Thatra, submitted to the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, 2015.
Local Supervisor, John Fahy, PhD candidate at the department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge 2013
Local Supervisor, Aniket De, Undergraduate student, Tufts University, 2014-15
External Member, Doctoral Advisory Committee of PhD candidate Souri Mazumder, ‘Role of Mythology in Learning and Identity Formation among Adolescents: A Study of Two Schools in Bengal’, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru
Book:
‘The Place of Devotion: Siting and Experiencing Divinity in Bengal-Vaishnavism’. 2015. Oakland: University of California Press.
(Series: South Asia Across the Disciplines)
Journal Articles:
'Abyakto Lahari: Ashabda, Shabda, O Sankhyar Abchhaya', Kolkata 21, Volume 3, September 2023, pp 100-124.
Co-authored with Dishani Roy, ‘Gender, Education and Citizenship as Ideological Weapons of an ‘Army of Holy Women’ in Bengal: The Matua Matri Sena’, Religions, 2023, 14 (6).
‘Unravelling of the Number 16 in Corporeality, Percussion, and the Bengali Hindu Cosmos: The Experience of the Body/Mrdanga'. Volume 15, Issue 2, August 2022, 168–190. Journal of Hindu Studies.
'Religious Belief through drum-sound experience: Bengal's Devotional Dialectic of the Classical Goddess and Indigenous God'. August, 2022. Religions 13/8.
Link: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/8/707
‘Prithak Pranav, The Krishna-Kali conundrum: Historical and Literary complexities of Sectarian Bengal‘. Published Online: 23 May 2022. Volume 14, Issue 4, 2023, pp 504-28. South Asian History and Culture (Special Issue: Siddarth Satpathy ed.‘Between History and Literature: Essays for Dipesh Chakraborty’).
'Hinghsa Hoye Hamsa Mantra, Khetra hoye Khetrajna, Gita hoye Uttor-Gita: Ahang-er Yatra'. 2022. Alochona Chakra (ISSN: 22313990).
'Shankha-Shonghsharer Sthan-Kal-Patra ebong Uttor-Ouponibeshik bhabnar ek punormulyayan'. 2021. Tattvatalash (1) (ISBN: 9789849581406), pp. 51-72.
‘The Breathing Body, Whistling Flute, and Sonic Divine: Oneness and Distinction in Bengal Vaishnavism's Devotional Aesthetics’. 2021. Religions 12 (9). (Special Issue on 'Tuning in the Sacred: Studies in Music and World Religions', ed. by Guy L. Beck.)
‘Touch, Untouch and the Depositions of Uchhishta’. Economic and Political Weekly. 09 November 2019. Volume 54. Number 44. pp 15-17.
'Uddanda: The Aesthetic Yardstick of Meditation, Madness and Time in Chaitanya's Rathyatra dance'. Journal of Vaishnava Studies. Spring 2019. Volume 27. Number 2. pp 49-62.
Shankh-er Shongshar, Afterlive Everyday: Religious Experience of the Evening Conch andd Goddesses in Bengali Hindu Homes'. Religions. January 2019. pp 1-19 (Special issue: 'Religious Experience in the Hindu Tradition ed. June McDaniel)
Reprinted as book: June McDaniel (ed.) Religious Experience in the Hindu Tradition. 2019. MDPI.
https://www.mdpi.com/books/pdfview/book/1464
‘The Body-Mind Challenge: Theology and Phenomenology in Bengal-Vaishnavisms’. Modern Asian Studies. November 2018. Volume 52. Issue 6. pp 2080-2108. (Published Online: 20 July 2018)
‘Discovering Gupta-Vrindavan: Finding Selves and Places in the Storied Landscape’. Contributions to Indian Sociology. February 2013. Volume 47 Number 1. pp 113-140.
‘Hearing the Community and Nation: A History of Vaishnavism in Bengal as sung through traditions of kirtan music’. 2012. Jadavpur University Journal of Sociology. Volume 5. pp 62-73.
'Jagat-Nath as Pranavatanudharam: Reading the Nath yogic body and Puri as homologous kshetras of AUM resonance’ (under preparation)
Chapters in edited volumes:
'Why Do Bauls Sing? From Bodies to Music, the missing link of inner sounds' In The Tantric World (eds.) Anna A. Golovkova, Hillary Landberg and Hugh B. Urban. Routledge. (Forthcoming)
'Embodied Inheritance of a Dancing Philosophy: Text and Practice in the Chaitanya Charitamrita'. In The Literary Across Cultures: Cultural Poetics of Bhasha Literatures in Theory and Practice. (ed.) E.V. Ramakrishnan. Orient Blackswan. (Forthcoming)
‘Aural Auras of Inner Sounds: Conch Shells, Ritual Instruments and Devotional Bodies’. In Religious Sounds Beyond the Global North: Senses, Media and Power (eds.) Carola Erika Lorea and Rosalind Hackett. Amsterdam University Press. Series: Global Asia. (Forthcoming, April 2024)
‘Intellectual Exchange with Hands: Materiality and Cosmology in Manual Sharing Practices of an Asian Sacred Drum’ In An Anthropology of Intellectual Exchange: Interactions, Transactions and Ethics in Asia and Beyond (eds.) Jacob Copeman, Nicholas J. Long, Lam Min Chau, Joanna Cook and Magnus Marsden. September 2023. Berghahn Books. Series: Wyse Series in Social Anthropology. pp 209-234.
‘The Conch as a Tantric Artifact: Metaphysics of a Number and the Twirled Lives of Text and Practice’. In The Ethography of Tantra: Textures and Contexts of Living Tantric Traditions (eds.) Carola Lorea and Rohit Singh. October 2023. State University of New York Press. pp 111-136.
'The Leftover Untouch: Sensing Caste in the Modern Urban Lives of a Devotional Instrument'. In Religion and the City in India (ed.) Supriya Chaudhuri. August 2021. Routledge. pp 130-45.
‘Sahajiya Texts of Nadia: Beyond Reform and Revival’. 2020. In The Legacy of Vaisnavism in Colonial Bengal (ed.) Ferdinando Sardella and Lucian Wong. Routledge. pp 167-184.
‘Hearing the Transcendental Place: Sound, Spirituality and Sensuality in the musical practices of an Indian devotional order’. 2015. In Music and Transcendence (ed.) Ferdia Stone-Davis. Ashgate. pp 23-34.
‘For the Skin is Faster than the Word: Towards an Ethnography of Affect’. 2018. In Doing Theory: Locations, Hierarchies and Disjunctions (ed.) Maitrayee Choudhury and Manish Thakur. Orient Blackswan. pp 233-254.
Book Reviews:
Review of 'Unforgetting Chaitanya: Vaishnavism and Cultures of Devotion in Colonial Bengal', by Varuni Bhatia. 2020. Studies in History. Volume 36 Issue 1.
Review of 'A Genealogy of Devotion: Bhakti, Tantra, Yoga and Sufism in North India', by Patton. E. Burchett. 2020. Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Volume 88. Issue 2.
‘The Ideal Brahmin’, Review of ‘Renunciation and Untouchability in India: The Notional and the Empirical in the Caste Order’, by Srinivasa Ramanujam. 2020. Economic and Political Weekly Volume 55, Issue 28-29.
Review of ‘Folklore, Religion, and the Songs of a Bengali Madman’, by Carola Erika Lorea. Journal of Asian Ethnology. 2017. Volume 76. Issue 1.
Review of ‘The Triumph of the Snake Goddess’, by Kaiser Haq. August 2016. Biblio. Volume XXI Number 8.
Review of ‘Leprosy and a life in south India: journeys with a Tamil Brahmin’, by James Staples. August 2015. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Volume 21 Issue 3.
Interviews:
'Making Krishna Apparent: Interrogating intuitive capacity through Gaudiya-Vaishnav practice in West Bengal', interviewed by Dr. Atreyee Majumdar (Jindal Global University), in RIC Journal, February 2019.
https://ricjournal.com/2019/02/19/making-krishna-apparent-interrogating-intuitive-capacity-through-gaudiya-vaishnav-practice-in-west-bengal/
Presidency University Students Corner