[INDOLOGY] Emerging Scholars in Jain Studies (May 30, 2025) – Lecture by Dr. Eric Gurevitch, Harvard University, in Memory of Dr. Johannes Bronkhorst (1946–2025)

[Ana Bajzelj]

Apologies for cross-posting.



Dear Colleagues,



We would like to invite you to the next lecture in our “Emerging Scholars in
Jain Studies” virtual series co-organized by the Departments of Religious
Studies at UC Davis and UC Riverside. The lecture will be delivered by
*Dr. Eric
Gurevitch *(Harvard University) on *Friday, March 30, 2025, 9:00-10:30am PT*.
You will find more information about the lecture and the speaker below, and
on the attached flyer.



We are dedicating the event to *Dr. Johannes Bronkhorst *(1946–2025). *Dr.
Dominik Wujastyk *(University of Alberta) will offer a tribute to Dr.
Bronkhorst at the beginning of the event.



Register for the event here: https://ucr.zoom.us/meeting/register/v0
IGheztRvS3z4s27cFrQA



Please note that you will need to sign into your Zoom account before
entering the Zoom room.

Best wishes,


Ana Bajželj and Lynna Dhanani

--

*Putting Philosophy to Use: Jains Healing Bodies and Theorizing Caste in
Medieval India*

Philosophy in precolonial South Asia is often presented as the domain of
otherworldly thinkers, who deployed erudite arguments to pursue questions
of liberation. But starting in the medieval period, Jain authors employed
in royal courts—at the center of political power—put the tools of
philosophy to use as they struggled with everyday problems. This talk asks
the seemingly simple question: What was philosophy in Sanskrit good for? It
answers it by exploring how Jains in the world used techniques developed by
epistemologists writing in Sanskrit to explore the practice of medicine and
the reality—or unreality—of caste.



*Dr. **Eric Moses Gurevitch* is a historian of science, technology, and
medicine entering the Department of the History of Science at Harvard
University as an Assistant Professor. He was a National Endowment for the
Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow at Vanderbilt University, and he completed a
PhD at the University of Chicago jointly in the Department of South Asian
Languages & Civilizations and the Committee on the Conceptual & Historical
Studies of Science. Eric’s dissertation was awarded the DK Award for the
Outstanding Doctoral Thesis on Sanskrit from the International Association
of Sanskrit Studies; the Dissertation Prize from the Division of History of
Science and Technology of the International Congress of History of Science
and Technology; the Dissertation Award on the Formation of Knowledge from
the University of Chicago; and the Mohini Jain Presidential Chair in Jain
Studies Best Dissertation Award from the Department of Religious Studies at
the University of California, Davis. He is currently finishing a book under
contract with the University of Chicago Press and Permanent Black Press
titled *Everyday Sciences: Practical Knowledge and Knowle**d**g**e**able
Practice in South Asia*. Now that the first book is (almost) finished, Eric
is pursuing a second project that explores the literate and numerate
practices of artisans and other people from caste-oppressed communities in
medieval and early modern South Asia.


--


Ana Bajzelj
Associate Professor
Shrimad Rajchandra Endowed Chair in Jain Studies
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department for the Study of Religion
Cooperating Faculty Member
Department of Philosophy
University of California, Riverside
Co-Chair, Jain Studies Unit, American Academy of Religion
She/her/hers
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