Anthropology

In Yogalands (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025), Paul Bramadat wrestles with his position as a skeptical scholar who is also a devoted yoga practitioner. Drawing from his own experience, and from conversations with hundreds of yoga teachers and …

Scholars of religion have mostly abandoned the concept of "syncretism" in which certain apparent deviations from "standard" practice are believed to be the result of a mixture of religions. This is particularly relevant to Thailand, in …

Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) examines how fans worship film stars as deities. Focusing on temples dedicated to Bollywood (Hindi …

Extensively based on fieldwork material, From Tapas to Modern Yoga: Sādhus' Understanding of Embodied Practices (Equinox, 2024) primarily analyses embodied practices of ascetics belonging to four religious orders historically associated …

The Parashakthi Temple in Pontiac, Michigan serves as a site of worship for the Hindu goddess Karumariamman, whose origins are in South India. In her American home Karumariamman has assumed the status of Great Goddess, a tantric deity and …

For some four hundred years, Hindus and Christians have been engaged in a public controversy about conversion and missionary proselytization, especially in India and the Hindu diaspora.  Hindu Mission, Christian Mission: Soundings in …

Philosophical concepts are influential in the theories and methods to study the world religions. Even though the disciplines of anthropology and religious studies now encompass communities and cultures across the world, the theories and …

Religious Minorities Online (RMO) is the premier academic resource on religious minorities worldwide, reflecting the state of the art in scholarship. It is written by leading scholars and is rigorously peer-reviewed. Available as an Open …

In Tamil Nadu, the nine-night autumnal Navarātri festival can be viewed as a celebration of feminine powers in association with the goddess. Ina Marie Lunde Ilkama's book The Play of the Feminine (HASP, 2023) explores Navarātri as it is …

Mumbai is generally recognized as an environment of extraordinary religious diversity. The city is known at one and the same time for a habitual cosmopolitanism and a series of violent religion-related conflicts and clashes.  While there …