[INDOLOGY] 50th Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions at University of Oxford

[Kush Depala]

Dear members of the list,


We are delighted to announce the dates and call for papers for the Spalding
Symposium on Indian Religions 2025.


We hope that many of you can join us at this special gathering to celebrate
an incredible half century of scholarship, research, and community and to
reflect together on the future.

Please see the Call for Papers below and hold the dates – more information
to follow soon.

———————-


Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions, 2025
Christ Church, University of Oxford


Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th May 2025


Call for Papers – Proposal submission deadline: October 30th 2024


Theme: Festivals and Celebrations


To celebrate its 50th anniversary as the foremost UK academic event on
Indian religions, this year’s symposium invites papers that address the
theme of festivals and celebrations.


South Asian festivals play a pivotal role in the social and religious lives
of millions. Festivals, broadly defined by Grimes as a “ritual form of
celebration” (1982), often take place within the public space, and they
invoke “alternative worlds that are connected with special expectations,
special connections and special modes of consumption.” They occur “in
separate spheres in terms of time and space” (Hüsken and Michaels, 2013),
thus functioning as “a liminal time set apart from the ordinary,” (Ilkama,
2023). It is in these spheres that text, ritual, material, performance and
much more come together to form a “festival” that is greater than a sum of
its parts. This symposium invites papers that explore public, ritualised
celebrations taking place in South Asia or having South Asian origins from
a variety of disciplinary approaches and methods.


Proposals are expected to address the theme of the conference.


Our purview includes both religions of South Asian origin wherever in the
world they are being practised, and those of non-South Asian origin present
within South Asia.


We welcome papers based upon all research methods, including anthropology,
material culture, textual studies, religious studies, history, art history,
heritage studies and performance studies.


Keywords:

Festivals, celebrations, *utsava*, *yātrā*, *melā*, *jayantī*, harvest,
national/local, cultural heritage, ritual cycles, material culture, food,
space, landscapes, globalism, digital festivals, diaspora, diversity,
tribal and folk expressions, calendars


Presenters are allocated *forty minutes* for their paper and *twenty
minutes* for discussion. As the conference will be in person, a conference
fee will apply.


We also welcome proposals from advanced doctoral candidates, who will be
allocated *twenty minutes* for their paper and *ten minutes* for
discussion. Doctoral students may be entitled to bursaries if their papers
are accepted.


If you would like to give a presentation, please fill out this Google form (
https://forms.gle/a4b21qhDRPhJX5Fp8
<https://url.usb.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/5WkGCk6WGkCOro012S29O6x?domain=forms.gle>)
with a title, abstract (maximum 500 words), short bio and affiliation to
the Spalding Symposium committee, by 30th October 2024.


Due to the typical volume of submissions, individual feedback on proposals
cannot be provided. Successful proposals will be announced in November 2024.


For further enquiries please email the committee on the email address:
spaldingsymposium1 at gmail.com.


With best wishes,


Kush on behalf of


Prof. James Mallinson (Oxford)

– convenor 2025


and


Dr. Pranav Prakash (Oxford), Dr. Karen O-Brien-Kop (King’s College London)
& Kush Depala (Heidelberg)

– the organising committee
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