Our 2020 Annual Meeting Program

Virtual, December 2-3, in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion

Wednesday, December 2
9:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. EST
Virtual

Theme: Politics and Religions in India: Religious Freedom for all Citizens of India

This panel addressed the issue of religious freedom in a political climate in which a version of Hinduism is being promoted which seems to delegitimize other well-established religions and to increase social conflict. How should religion scholars understand and respond to this situation?

Panelists:

Edward Ulrich, University of Saint Thomas
The Emergence of the Rhetoric of Hindu-Muslim Strife in India’s Independence Movement

Jose Abraham
Victimisation and Ghettoisation: A Girardian Reading of Recent Communal Violence in Delhi

Anant Rambachan, Saint Olaf University
Savarkar and Indian identity

Fuad S. Naeem, University of St. Thomas
Examining the Roots of Religious Conflict in Modern South Asia: British colonialism and Hindu-Muslim polemics

Chad Bauman, Butler University
Constraining the Majority: Religious Freedom, ‘Essential Practices,’ and the Government Administration of Temples in India

Responding: Michael T. McLaughlin, Old Dominion University

Contact: Michael T. McLaughlin

Society for Hindu-Christian Studies Business Meeting

Thursday, December 3
4:00 – 6:00 p.m. EST
Virtual

Theme: The Significance of Sri Ramakrishna for Hindu-Christian Studies: New Perspectives

Panelists:

Jeffery Long, Elizabethtown College 
Rita Sherma, Graduate Theological Union
Christopher Conway, College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University
Pravrajika Vrajaprana, Vedanta Society of Southern California

Responding: Reid Locklin, University of Toronto

Contact: Reid Locklin

The AAR used EventPilot Virtual Events as its platform. All sessions were on Zoom. There was a technician at each panel and that person was the Zoom host. It was the presider, however, who welcomed, muted, and unmuted participants, and moderated comments during Q and A.