[INDOLOGY] Registration now Live for the 50th Spalding Symposium, University of Oxford

[Kush Depala]

Dear members of the list,



Registration for 50th Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions is now open:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/50th-annual-spalding-symposium-on-indian-religions-tickets-1234492302709
<https://url.usb.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/glJJCl8WJlt1m7kJZtGfVTzeKob?domain=eventbrite.co.uk>



Venue: Christ Church, Oxford (in person)

Dates: 2nd May - 4th May 2025





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.

The symposium this year is held over three days on the first weekend in May
at Christ Church, and the conference dinner will be held at Balliol College
on Saturday 3rd May.





A draft schedule is given below:



*(All panel timings are still subject to change)*

*Venue: Christchurch College*



*Friday 2**nd** May*

12.15-12.45: Registration, Arrival

12.45-1.00: Opening welcome

*1.00-2.00: Opening Keynote: Professor Diwakar Acharya, Spalding Professor
of Eastern Religions and Ethics, University of Oxford *

*15 min break *

*2.15-3.45: Panel 1*

Sucharita Adluri (Cleveland State University): *Festivals Inscribed in
Stone: Public Celebrations in Late Medieval South India*

Elizabeth Cecil (Florida State University, USA): *Epigraphic Events:
Sanskrit Inscriptions as Performative Media*

*15 min break *

*4.00-5.30: Panel 2 *

Peter Bisschop (Leiden, Netherlands): *Festivities of the Asuras in the
Skandapurāṇa*

Mandira Sharma (Independent Scholar): *Wheels of Devotion: Understanding
Śiva’s Rathotsavam (Chariot Festival) in South India through Śaiva
Literature*

*Evening Break *

*7.00: Film Screening & Discussion at Balliol College*



*Saturday 3**rd** May*

*9.00-10.45: Panel 3, Postgraduate*

Kush Depala (Heidelberg University): *Virtual Venerations and Digital
Devotion: Celebrating a VR Janmajayanti during the COVID-19 Pandemic*

Jackson Stephenson (University of California, Santa Barbara): *Night on
Bald Mountain: Performing Enlightenment through Song*

Kainat Bashir (Toronto, Canada): *Being Catholic the Punjabi Way: An
Analysis of Material Acts of Religion in Mariamabad Shrine Punjab, Pakistan*

Sujata Chaudhary (McGill, Canada)*: **Bhagwan” and “devtas” of Kullu
Dusshera - an analysis of Dusshera of Kullu District*

*15min break *

11.00-12.30 Panel 4 & Panel 5

*Panel 4 *

Annalisa Boccheti (University of Naples "L'Orientale"): *Between Eid and
Holi at Shāh ʿĀlam II’s court: ritualised power or powerful rituals?*

Manik Bajracharya and Rajan Khatiwoda (Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and
Humanities): *Power and Patronage in Motion: The Buṅgadyaḥ Yātrā of
Kathmandu Valley*

*Panel 5 *

Saran Suebsantiwongse (Leiden University): *Celebrating Divine Kingship:
The Tiruvempāvai-Tiruppāvai Festival in Thailand and Its South Indian
Heritage*

George Pati (Valparaiso University, USA): *Embodiment, Spatiality, and
Materiality at the Uthra Śīvēli Festival in a Kerala Temple*

*Lunch: 12.30-2.00*

2.00-3.30 Panel 6 & Panel 7

*Panel 6 *

Richard David Williams (SOAS, University of London): *The Pleasures of
Bhīm: Festivals and Courtly Time in Early Nineteenth-Century Udaipur*

Ananya Vajpeyi: Centre for Study of Developing Societies, India: *The Arts
Festival: Transformations of the "Classical" in Contemporary Carnatic Music
and Kudiyattam Theatre*

*Panel 7*

Christopher Fleming (Oxford, UK): *The Legal Regulation of Festivals in
Contemporary Indian Law: Essential Practices and Constitutional Principles*

Nicole Karapanagiotis (Rutgers University, USA): *Negotiating Public and
Private, Legal and Banned: Rathayātrā of the International Sri Krishna
Mandir (ISKM) in Singapore*

*30min break *

4.00-5.30 Panel 8 & Panel 9



*Panel 8 *

Daniela De Simone & Ramesh Nanjundan (Ghent University & University of
Hyderabad): *The Toda Salt Giving Ceremony: A Study of Ecological and
Cultural Rituals in the Nilgiri Hills*

Hab Cezary Gaiewicz (Jagiellonian University, Poland): *Imagined Festivals
and Genuine Emotions: the Candrikāvītthī of Rāmapaṇivāda to be staged in
celebration of Śivarātri in premodern Kerala*

*Panel 9*

Smytta Yadav (University of Sussex, UK): *Liminal Spaces and Cultural
Continuity: Diasporic Hindu Festivals as Sites of Heritage and Identity in
the UK*

Aarti Patel (Pennsylvania State University): *Pandemic Festivals:
Transcending Geographies and Expanding Accessibility*

*Plenary 5.30-6.30: Celebrating 50 years of Spalding Symposium *

*Evening 7pm: Group dinner at Balliol College, Oxford*



*Sunday 4**th** May*

*9.00-10.30 Panel 10*

Leah Comeau (Saint Joseph's University / Universität Hamburg): *Shared
Blessings: The Role of Sacred Sarees in Tamil Christian Festival
Celebrations*

Ewa Dębicka-Borek (Jagiellonian University, Poland*): From Theft to
Reverence: The Ritual Theft of Jewelry in Ahobilam*

*15min break *

*10.45-12.15 Panel 11*

Christophe Vielle (University of Louvain, Belgium): *Aspects of the
Festival of Love in premodern Kerala*

Liwen Liu (SOAS University of London): *Festival, Architecture, and
Kingship: An Ethnographic Study of the Dasaiṃ Festival at Hanuman Dhoka,
Kathmandu*

*15min break *

*12.15-1.15: Closing Keynote: Professor Ute Hüsken, Head of Cultural and
Religious History of South Asia, Heidelberg University*

1.30 Conference END

---

Kush Depala

PhD Candidate
Cultural and Religious History of South Asia
South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University
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