Our 2015 Annual Meeting Program

Atlanta, Georgia, November 20-23

Friday, November 20
7:00-9:00pm, Marriott-M101 (Marquis Level)
AAR Program: P20-405

Joint Session with the Dharma Academy of North America

Theme: Rebirth: Hindu and Christian Perspectives

Trent Pomplun, Loyola University Maryland, Presiding

Bradley Malkovsky, University of Notre Dame
Reincarnation and Christianity: An Historical and Theological Overview

Francis X. Clooney, Harvard University
The Early Jesuit Critique of Rebirth: What Can We Learn from History?

Ankur Barua, University of Cambridge
Revisiting the Rationality of Reincarnation

Jonathan Edelmann, University of Florida
One-life and Many-life Theisms: A Philosophical Discussion

Responding: Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Lancaster University

Saturday, November 21
7:30-8:30am, Hilton-407 (Level 4)
AAR Program: P21-1

Society for Hindu-Christian Studies Board Meeting

Chad Bauman, Butler University, Presiding

Saturday, November 21
9:00-11:30am, Hilton-407 (Level 4)
AAR Program: P21-105

Theme: God and Evil in Hindu and Christian Theology, Myth, and Practice

Lance Nelson, University of San Diego, Presiding

Andrew J. Nicholson, Stony Brook University
Hindu Disproofs of God: The Sāṃkhya Sūtras on God’s Psychology and the Problem of Evil

Rico Gabriel Monge, University of San Diego
The Good and the Bad, the Beautiful and the Ugly: An Eastern Orthodox Perspective on Theodicy

Lance Nelson, University of San Diego
Creation, God, and Evil in Plotinus, Augustine, Śaṃkara, and Abhinavagupta

Graham M. Schweig, Christopher Newport University
From “Angry Curse” to “Poetic Verse”: Aspects of Good and Evil in Bhakti Traditions

Lavanya Vemsani, Shawnee State University
Narasiṃha, No Boundaries: Evil and Good in Myth and Practice

James Ponniah, University of Madras
Subaltern Encounter of Evil: Subverting the Dominant and Appropriating the Indigenous

Business Meeting

Chad Bauman, Butler University, Presiding

Monday, November 23
9:00-11:30am, Marriott-M104 (Marquis Level)
AAR Program: P23-100

Joint Session with the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies

Theme: Thomas Merton at 100: His Influence on the Study of Hinduism and Buddhism

Rachel McDermott, Barnard College, Presiding

Francis X. Clooney, Harvard University
‘All the Way from India:’ Merton in the Mirror of Hinduism

Thomas Forsthoefel, Mercyhurst University
Merton and the Axes of Dialogue

Judith Simmer-Brown, Naropa University
Ambivalence in Shangri-La: Merton’s Orientalism and Dialogue

John P. Keenan, Middlebury College
Thomas Merton’s Unfinished Journey: From Encounter to Sharing