[INDOLOGY] 5-year MBh Seminar at AAR CFP

[Collins, Brian]

Dear List,

Just a quick reminder that the call for papers is open until March 2nd for the Mahabharata and Classical Hinduism Seminar at AAR in Boston. Please email me if you have any questions!

Call for Proposals

The Seminar’s initial call for papers is intended to explore the state of the field of Mahābhārata studies. We will solicit papers addressing the various approaches employed in previously published works to any part of the Mahābhārata tradition, e.g., Sanskrit or vernacular texts, dramas, and ritual enactments. Papers proposing new avenues of approach or areas in which new research is needed are also welcome. Analysis of the extensive contributions of Alf Hiltebeitel to the understanding of the Sanskrit text and its performative traditions would also be welcome.

Statement of Purpose

The Mahābhārata and Classical Hinduism Seminar seeks to facilitate the academic exchange so necessary to progress through a format similar to a workshop, with pre-circulated papers. This seminar will bring together philologists, Indologists, ethnographers, scholars of performance theory and practices, and generalists taking on the daunting task of incorporating India’s great epic into their coursework on Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, or Yoga. Over the course of the five-year seminar, we hope that these varied approaches will prove mutually illuminating and raise new questions. The seminar’s scope includes not only the Sanskrit text, but also dramatic and fictional retellings, regional and vernacular versions, etc. We will select papers by asking the following four questions, which will change somewhat according to each year’s topic: Does the paper shine a new light on some previously underappreciated aspect, episode, character, or form of the epic? Does the paper either represent or respond to the most current trends and arguments in Mahābhārata studies? Does the paper help to demystify the Mahābhārata, helping non-specialists who are intimidated by its length and complexity to incorporate it into their teaching or scholarship? Does the paper provide a model for interdisciplinary practice (e.g., Does it bridge the gap between philology and new forms of critical textual analysis or between ethnography and history of religions?).

Best,

Brian


Assoc. Prof. Brian Collins
Department Chair and Drs. Ram and Sushila Gawande Chair in Indian Religion and Philosophy
234 Ellis Hall
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio
740-597-2103
Author, The Other Rāma: Matricide and Genocide in the Mythology of Paraśurāma<http://www.sunypress.edu/p-6920-the-other-rma.aspx> (SUNY Press, forthcoming)





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