[nyfoil-l] SEMINAR MEETING: 2/21

[David Magier]

The Columbia University Seminar on South Asia
is pleased and excited to announce its next meeting of the year:


            "The Bhakti Movement:
            Says who? Since when?"

                     by

            Professor Jack Hawley
            Department of Religion
               Barnard College


           Monday, February 21, 2005
                    4:00 PM

Southern Asian Institute
1134 International Affairs Building
420 West 118 Street, New York City

ABSTRACT
Following the work of several other scholars (notably Krishna Sharma and
Karen Pechilis), I have recently begun a project that tries to locate the
principal moments at which the idea of a "bhakti movement" became fixed as
historiographic canon. Who was involved? When? Why? What were the stakes
beyond the realm of intellectual history as such? Initially, it appears,
it's all about Northerners claiming the heritage of the South, starting
with the Bhagavata Mahatmya in 16th or 17th -century north central India,
perhaps in Brindavan itself. The idea was updated -- or independently
reformulated -- in other environments, including especially the court of
Maharaja Jai Singh and the cultural nationalist circles that inhabited
cities like Banaras in the first half of the 20th century. There one
detects a dialogue with what was being said in English, and the silence
about Islam is often deafening.

In this talk, I will explore these three moments in the religious and
political history of North India: 16th-century Brindavan, 18th-century
Jaipur, and 20th-century Banaras. My purpose is to show that, far from
being a natural, immutable fact, the idea of the bhakti movement is an
artifact?a contingent, produced reality.


The talk will be followed by dinner at Faculty House (4th Floor)

******************************************************************
Please RSVP for Prof. Hawley's presentation as soon as possible by
notifying our rapportuer, James Hare (email: jph2101 at columbia.edu). Please
indicate if you will attend the dinner, and if you require on-campus
parking.